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Sunday, June 24, 2001
Greetings from Fallbrook, California, where I am spending the weekend with my father
and stepmother. This is my longest stretch out on the road, and while I wish I was home,
there are benefits in not flying back. I am not opening mail, cleaning the house,
returning phone calls. I'm sleeping and reading and eating a lot of peaches. I am telling
myself that tour will be over at the end of next week, which is not exactly true since I
have to go out for one more round in the middle of July. I am lying to myself and it
brings me comfort. When I wrote last week, I made a concerted effort to be more positive,
only to find out I'd been too negative on a couple of points, which were delicately
excised from the tour journal. I will now do my best to be very, very positive.
My first stop was San Francisco. I flew in on Tuesday and did back to back readings in
Berkeley and in the city and by the time they were over I felt like it was Friday, which
seemed like a bad sign. The readings, however, went well. When I read at Black Oak Books
in Berkeley people laughed at the parts I thought were funny for the first time. I got in
a good bit of gossiping in at A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books. My media escort was
Davis Golia, whom I knew from a visit a few years ago. He is a wonderful, wonderful guy
who did everything possible (as we shall see) to keep my sinking spirits afloat. I had
dinner with him and his wife, Lou Seekins, Kathi Goldmark of Harper's San Francisco (who
will publish her own novel with Chronicle books next year) and Sam Berry. Lou plays the
accordion and is a seismologist, which makes her the most interesting person I'd met in a
long time. Sensing that I was a little low, she sent me two gifts the next day when David
picked me up: 1) a Barbara Eden "I Dream of Jeannie" hairpiece, which gave me
the pony tail I have always wanted 2) the use of their 120 pound dog, Booger, for the day.
I'm a pretty emotionally stable person, and when I'm down all I really need is the love of
a good dog to pick me up again. Booger is a very, very good dog. He went to stock signings
and radio shows and was a big hit everywhere. He pressed himself against my knees and was
well mannered and affectionate in every way. My own good dog, Rose, weighs 16 pounds and
would have tried to take a piece out of anyone who got near me, the point being that
sometimes it isn't a specific dog you need but just a dog. By the middle of the day I was
in a fine mood. We finished up the last radio show and went out into the lovely day. David
dropped the leash for just a second while opening the car door for me. It only takes
second. Booger dove into a giant hedge and was skunked.
I grew up in the country and I have plenty of experiences with the freshly run over skunk,
but I had never been there for the actual spray. It was impressive. It was awful. It was
very funny. Getting back in the car with the dog and then getting stuck in windless
traffic on the freeway will go down as the defining moment of book tour. David was
thoroughly demoralized by the whole thing (it was his car, after all) but I have to say it
brightened me up immeasurably. The three of us then went to a combination car wash and
burrito stand for lunch where Booger could be aired-out for a while. I went back to the
hotel and took several showers and was in an excellent mood when I went to my signing that
night at Kepler's. That was San Francisco.
It was a hugely busy day in Los Angeles. As always, I marvel at the fact my publicist can
find so many people who are willing to talk to me about my book. I read at Vroman's in
Pasadena and the place was packed. My parents had been working on the guest list and
invitations for a month, and everyone who had ever briefly intersected our lives was in
attendance. The store stayed open for an extra hour while I signed and patient people
waited. There were so many people I wanted to take into a back room and talk to for an
hour --- former students, family friends, dear cousins. I have said it before, but book
tour really is like going to your own wedding, a big wedding in which you spend the whole
evening in a receiving line.
That's pretty much the story. I finally finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, THE
FITZGERALDS AND THE KENNEDYS, this morning. It was wonderful. I have been living in that
world for so long I hardly know what I'll do without it. I'm going to mail it to Karl
tomorrow so I won't have to carry it to Seattle and Portland. That will be the most
salacious thing I will say in this report: that I found Doris Kearns Goodwin's book to be
excellent but very heavy.
Please visit my website at www.annpatchett.com.
--- Ann Patchett
(c)
Copyright 2001, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
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