The long holiday weekend brought the usual problem of what to watch. I have called a temporary moratorium on mystery and detective series – and a lifelong ban on Harlan Coben, a writer I had never heard about until I subscribed to Netflix. How can it be that so many shows have been made from books one never sees in bookstores – even airport bookstores?
A Polish friend messaged me this morning with the news that she’s presenting a paper at an academic conference and one of her co-panelists will be discussing my book. Looking at the program listing that she attached, I saw that a professor at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin will be talking about Unquiet Days: At Home in Poland, as well as another book about Poland by another American. I googled this author and learned, with dismay, that she is an esteemed anthropologist, the recipient of numerous academic awards. Surely, she wrote a deep, well-researched, important study of Poland. My book, by contrast, is a mix of descriptions and anecdotes from the two and a half years I lived in Warsaw. I hope the professor is not too hard on me.
Sunday’s New York Times Book Review featured a profile of Curtis Chin, author of Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant. Chin apparently sent the manuscript to 90 agents, none of whom were interested in it. He added the subject of racism, and the story of his coming out, and he got four offers. I am no longer surprised when I read things like this, but I am dismayed. How many good books are going unpublished because they fail to check the obligatory boxes?
I’m 100 pages into Zora Neale Hurston’s memoir Dust Tracks on a Road and am impressed by the writing, the spirit, the life – and she’s not yet out of her teens.
Forty-three years ago today, General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposed martial law in Poland:
“The news on television was now being delivered by a man in a military uniform. Tanks and soldiers patrolled the streets. Schools were closed until after the holidays; theaters, cinemas, and concert halls were closed indefinitely. Telephones throughout the country had been disconnected; the borders closed to citizens. Solidarity’s leaders were being interned; General Jaruzelski jokes were being minted.” – from Falling into Place: A Story of Love, Poland, and the Making of a Travel Writer.