An Incredible Book Journey
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
The Glory of the Bookstore
When I think of bookstores, that cliché about sex comes to mind. There is no such thing as a bad one. (Unless there is bookstore that specializes in grotesque hate literature and preaches racial violence; that would be bad. But anyways.)
Whether large chains or local crevices, online or on the corner, bookstores are places you can stumble upon new writers, reach out to old masters, and be swept away by wondrous ideas. And, as a general rule, brilliant people work in bookstores. If at this instant we transported all the bookstore people to one big beach party, it would be a hell of good time.
On this rather ambitious tour of mine, I have decided to visit only independent bookstores for a few reasons. First, my book is about an independent bookstore, perhaps the most famous in the world, Shakespeare and Company in Paris. Second, as an editor with Kilometer Zero, we discovered independent bookstores are more willing to give alternative publications space on their shelves, and for this I will be ever loyal to their cause. And finally, independent bookstores foster community far better than Amazon or large chains ever can. Everything from the note board with apartments to rent or music lessons on offer, to the weekly reading groups, to the booknut behind the cash who will linger over a Paul auster conversation with you, create an environment where people can relate to other people.
So far, I am scheduled to visit 20 independent bookstore in North America and a few more will be added to the list in the coming days. Come and see me if you can. I am on the road starting November 1st and the first stop is in Boston on November 2nd. It should be a mad mad time.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Marseille-Paris
The train north is a depressing affair at the best of times. The sun is inevitably shining when I leave Marseille and just as inevitably the clouds thicken the farther north I get. Everybody who lives in the south of France talks about the weather and for good reason: it is so damn wonderful. When I lived in Paris, winters were wet and grey and it often rained six days a week. In Marseille, I can take my afternoon coffee on an outside terrace in February and last year my dear friend Buster Burk and I went swimming – briskly, I admit – and then sunned ourselves on the rocks on New Year’s Day. The longer I live in the south, the more allergic I become to clouds and cold, and I loathe to leave when winter is approaching.
But this time, the departure was nearly crushing. I have fallen in love with Marseille, a 2600-year-old port city that is raw and rough and alive. I have never really felt at home until Marseille. I think I dreamt a city like it might exist but never thought it could: ringed by mountains, soaked in sun, on the shores of the Mediterranean, a vibrant and diverse community that has earned it the nickname ‘the most northern city in Africa.’ After years of drifting and travelling, I finally found a place I could put down roots. And yet I leave, on this daunting book tour, to the cold winter of North America no less, with no sure plans of when I will call it my home again.
I also feared I had been too optimistic in the planning of this book tour. How can I manage to 10,000 miles on the road? Being ‘on’ all the time, no corner of my own to curl up, long and lonely highways. Sitting in the train, watching the city blur away from me, I wanted to throw it all in, to cancel everything and return home where I can take afternoon siestas and drink perroquets for my appero and simply be happy.
And, probably the most important reason for my depression, was the woman who waved me goodbye as the train pulled out of Gare St. Charles. She is the woman I thought I would spend my life with, the woman who stood by me while I wrote the book. We are travelling that treacherous bridge between love and friendship and I as journey out into the cold world once more, I fully understand all I am leaving behind.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Seeing George
Let us just say that George Whitman can be a difficult character. While in Paris, I dropped by the Shakespeare and Company bookstore to give both George and his daughter Sylvia copies of the book. Sylvia was charming and gracious and wonderful. George, as cantankerous as ever, snarled and closed the door on me.
I concede that it must be difficult to read about yourself in a book, to see yourself in the mirror of another person’s eyes. And I know that George believes that if I was his true friend, I would have presented a more bucolic vision of Shakespeare and Company and written a romantic fairy tale. But, the journalist in me dies hard, and I wrote about everything I saw and experienced, both the magical and the unsavoury, and George still doesn’t forgive me.
His rejection is harder to take at a time when Diane Johnson (Le Divorce etc) has published such spurious rumours about George. How can he be angry with me writing about the lack of proper bathing facilities at this store when she raises such ugly spectres with no proof or attribution? If nothing else, my book was written with love and respect for the man who created Shakespeare and Company and I hope George comes to see that.
In blazing contrast was my visit with Simon Green, the extremely talented and rabidly eccentric poet who lived at Shakespeare and Company and figures largely in my book. He invited me and our mutual friend Ryan McGlynn to an apartment in Clichy where he was dog-sitting. Ryan had his video camera with him and thankfully so for nobody will ever believe Simon’s manic genius unless they see it for themselves. Simon offered us bourbon and other combustible treats, regaled us with photos of his garden on Belle Isle, and soliloquized on everything from Mao’s atrocities to Bob Dylan, all while wearing 150-euro designer T-shirt. To think this man used to scrape baguette money from the wishing well.
A final note about my Paris visit. I had lunch and beer with Buster Burk and learned that he had received a stunning 18 on 20 on his D.E.A. thesis at the Sorbonne. The D.E.A. is a one-year degree between Master’s and PhD and in the soul-devouring French system, students are happy with a 12 or 13 on 20 and over-the-moon delighted with a 15 on 20. For Buster, an English speaker from South Carolina to write a 100-page thesis about Apollinaire in French and get an 18 is unheard of. The boy is talented and I tip my cap to him.
October 31, 2005
Halloween
There is a very important reason why I am leaving for my book tour on the morning of November 1st. I had to spend Halloween at home.
Halloween is without a doubt my favourite holiday of the year. There is no religious tie, so everybody can participate without spiritual discord. Everyone becomes a sculptor when they face a pumpkin with knife in hand and everybody becomes an actor when they don their face paint. And the kids and their costumes are the epitome of adorable. And the candy – who doesn’t like candy? And the macabre subtext to it all …
With all modesty, I believe I my parents’ house was the best decorated house on the street.(Though sadly the photo is all blurry.) We had six pumpkins, plus a pumpkin display in the front window, plus strings of lights wrapped around spooky branches attached to the porch, plus strings of skeletons and ghosts. My cousin Mike (that’s him carving a pumpkin with my dear friend Sparkle Hayter) is an extremely talented carver whose intricate designs put us all to shame, while his wife Laura stunned us by carving the symbol pi onto her pumpkin to create ‘pumpkin pi’.
Sparkle, who is coming along with me from Ottawa to Boston to New York, took dozens of photos of the costumed children. Her favourite was two girls dressed as ying and yang and you can see the picture of her taking a picture of them.
The only sad part of this Halloween is that I didn’t get to execute my full pumpkin installation. Last year I had a theme of giant pumpkins crushing smaller pumpkins to death in their jaws. This year I had an incredibly wonderful plan but it involved wooden stakes and a dozen pumpkins and I just didn’t have time to pull it off. Next year, oh sweet next year. If you are in the neighbourhood – 4th Avenue in Ottawa – drop by. We give away superb treats.
November 1, 2005
CBC
For those unaware, Canada is blessed with a most wonderful public broadcaster. CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) is sort of like the BBC, without as many radio frequencies but with just as impressive content, news, and music. Recently, CBC management locked out employees because they are trying crush the souls of the journalists by hiring casual workers who don’t have any job security or extended benefits. Why are they doing this? Because they care more about cutting a few taxes than protecting Canada’s cultural identity. This is why you should get involved in politics. Because if the good people sit on the sidelines (and I know you are a good person) than the visionless and the vain will seek public office and destroy all that is beautiful and worthy in government.
My family has been a CBC radio family since forever. Among my first memories are sitting on the heat vent on a winter morning, eating a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and listening to the local Ottawa CBC morning show. It made me happy then, and when I visit my parents’ house, it still makes me happy, though the Cheerios are replaced by strong black coffee now.
All this is to say that is an honour to be interviewed by the CBC about my book and tour and it was a thrill for my whole family to welcome Lucy van Oldenbarneveld to our home. Long live the CBC, long live Julie Delaney.
Faolain (speckled grey, white & black) and Miika (lovely brown) are two fabulous vegetarian dogs who are owned by two fabulous vegetarian people. (The people you will meet very very soon.)
Boston to New York
A bit of nastiness in Connecticut. Sure I cut off a truck driver while pulling into the Dunkin’ Donuts. And, yes, immediately after I did run through a stop sign because I was so flustered. But still, you wouldn’t think everybody would react with such anger. Nobody got hurt, nothing got dented and the sun was shining. People need to relax a little more or else the stress of driving will kill them.
One of the greatest benefits of living a wandering life is all the people you meet and how you can just show up in their cities and demand to sleep on their couches. Seriously, the extended Kilometer Zero family acts like a worldwide shelter system, offering kindness, meals and bed whenever possible. In Boston, I am lucky enough to know two incredible people.
The first is Onna Solomon, who was in Paris during the Paris years and worked with Kilometer Zero to organize the 24 Hour theatre project at the Chateaudun Art Squat. She is now in Boston, taking an MFA at Boston Univeristy and writing really magnificent poetry. Here is one of my favourites.
Things Begin To Change
As workers scour the storefront windows clear,
Their plastic buckets slosh, a squeegee rakes
What’s left of winter down the stairs into
The streets. You don’t know what it means
To be anything but a pale-skinned girl
Men with drenched sleeves turn to watch in the early spring.
The knuckles of their bare hands gleam like pearl
Above the muck of sandy snow along
Your route each morning – so when they’ve gone
You think of how their gazes guided you:
The easy way your eyes met theirs while everything
Was opening – you smiled generously:
You knew that every lustrous day this year
Was still untouched and just ahead of you.
The second is Mr. Craig Walzer. He goes around telling people he is 24 but he is clearly lying. How could a 24 year old have attended Brown and Oxford, travelled the world, and spent two years opening the most joyful bookstore in Greece? (Atlantis Books. www.atlantisbooks.org. Visit sometime. I will be there February to May, 2006.)
Now Craig is taking a four year international law/human rights/hyper genius program at Harvard. He and his classmates had lunch with John Kerry last week. That’s the kind of place it is. (I find it amusing that Craig lives in the zip code 02138 which, according to him, is the zip code which writes the most letters to the editor in America.) This morning, Craig was such a gentleman and kind soul that he invited me along to a class taught by Michael Ignatieff. It was about how religions and human rights clash and it was brilliant for everyone but especially brilliant for me because Michael Ignatieff is Canadian and there are rumours he is going to enter politics. I accosted him after his class and vowed to support him. If he becomes prime minister, he could be Trudeau II.
Gig # 1
Brookline Booksmith
279 Howard St.
Brookline, Massachusetts
I am not a fan of readings. Stories and poems are written with a reader in mind and reading is an internal process, an intimate relationship between the author and the reader. From my experience, written work often loses its thrust and elegance when read aloud to an audience of 30 or 40 people perched awkwardly on folding chairs. When we organized our Kilometer Zero Venue series in Paris, one of main motivations was having to attend other readings in Paris and sitting numb and bored while a writer droned on for 40 minutes. There had to be a better way for a writer to interact with an audience, so we urged people to become performers, we limited their stage time, and we asked them to, at all costs, avoid long monotonous passages.
When faced with presenting my book, I wanted to live up to the Kilometer Zero standards. With the voice of the legendary Tom Pancake ricocheting in my head, I came up with a bit of a literary show and tell, something I hoped would engage and entertain people. Did it work? I obviously can’t know for sure, but I think everyone at the Brookline Booksmith had, at the very least, an interesting evening. One person told me she had confused dates and thought it was a reading from a book about the coach of the New England Patriots. She said ‘Instead, I was treated to hearing about Shakespeare & Co. Thank you for that animated and interesting presentation.’ No, thank you Claire.
Boston is a great book town and the bookstore people were fabulous, especially the coordinator Janet Potter, who kept the panic away before the show started and gave me the wonderful gift of Cloud Atlas at the end. (She is the one smiling widely in the picture.) Janet was in Paris in 2000 and knew Shakespeare and Company so it was ideal. The other amazing thing was the old friends who turned up. The parents of Scott Stedman, a dear friend from Paris and a character in the book, were in attendance and were incredibly supportive. And another Paris fellow, Ethan Gilsdorf, biked madly to the Brookline and almost made it in time.
posted by Jeremy @ 6:43 AM 1 comments
Saturday, November 05, 2005
St. Martin’s Press
How do I love my publisher? Let me count the ways:
1) They were the only ones to take a chance on me.
2) They are in the Flatiron, perhaps the most inspiring building in New York City.
3) There is an endless supply of kind and talented people who work there. For example:
Mike Flamini: This is my editor who has show remarkable faith in me and has thus far taken me out to two superb lunches. The first was for sushi back in the fall of 2004 when I first signed with St. Martin’s. Even though I was a minnow in the publishing ocean, Mike made me feel like a fair-sized tuna. Yesterday, he took me to BLT Fish, a restaurant governed by this French chef and which offers such delights as cream filled jalapenos. This time he made me feel like a smallish whale. I’m not sure what it means that we ate fish.
Elizabeth Coxe and Vicki Lame: Ahhh, the perks of dropping by your publishers’ office. Elizabeth and Vicki do tremendous work in the publicity department at St. Martin’s, so after my lunch with Mike I stopped in to say hello. As I have more than a hundred hours of driving ahead of me (St. Paul-Calgary and Denver-St. Louis are two of the more daunting stretches), I wondered aloud whether St. Martin’s had any books on tape they could lend me. Elisabeth and Vicki took me to the fourth floor (they are on the 14th) and it was like trick-or-treating, but better because it was audio books instead of little packs of Smarties. In my bag? ‘The World is Flat’ (Thomas Friedman), ‘Running With Scissors’ and ‘Dry’ (Augusten Burroughs), ‘A Year in the Merde’ (Stephen Clarke), ‘Snobs’ (Julian Fellowes), and ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell’ (Susanna Clarke).
Harriet Seltzer: We just randomly bumped into Harriet while waiting for the elevator, which was nice because we emailed a lot when she setting up a very special event in Dayton for me. I would normally not include this picture because I look like a bit of a ninny, but Harriet looks so lovely, how could I exclude it?
There are also many other wonderful people at St. Martin’s, such as Katherine Tiernan, but I didn’t get to take their pictures because my camera ran out of battery.
Do you ever have one of those nights whose very existence is so special that you are are stunned and that you know you will remember for the rest of your life? Friday evening was one such night for me.
With the help of our dear friend Musa Gurnis (wondrous smile), the eternally generous Sparkle Hayter (working on her computer pre-fete) organized a party for me at the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street. Not much hasn’t been said about the Chelsea. Sparkle lived there for many years and one of her Robin Hudson books (The Chelsea Girl Murders) is set in the hotel. For the party, Sparkle rented a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment on the 8th floor that has been lived in by the likes of Viva and Ethan Hawke. There were flowers and lovely spreads of food and more varieties of liquour than I have fingers and toes. But most important were the people.
Dozens of Sparkle’s old New York friends came (that’s her with Victor Navasky), as well as a swath of our Paris friends, all of the people from The L Magazine, and Musa’s New York circle too. Every last one of them was engaging and eccentric and a joy to be around. The party went until 4 and though there were many moments of high excitement and melodrama, there was only one really scandalous event which must remain anonymous for the next several years at least, though I do tip my hat to Musa’s friend Joshua who deftly resolved a delicate situation.
