Only in America
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 at 10:54AM Chicago to Milwaukee to Washington, D.C. One week and three stops on my mini-book tour in support of my fiction debut, Lost in the Ivy.
Reverse the order of the cities and you have a rough road map of my life.
I was born in 1961, in Alexandria, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. By 1967, I’m living in an apartment in West Allis, Wisconsin, just outside of Milwaukee. By 1970, my residence is a townhouse in Country Club Hills, Illinois, a south suburb of Chicago. And I’m not even ten years old.
I hadn’t planned on my mini-book tour retracing the path of my life. It just worked out that way.
In fact, the connection didn’t even hit me until I got to Milwaukee. When the realization struck, I can’t say that a wave of nostalgia overcame me.
If the dimmer switch has darkened most of the memories of my childhood days in Milwaukee, there is barely a flicker of recollections of my infant and toddler days in D.C. There’s a worn album of faded photographs, and there are the stories my parents told me of being at the funeral procession for JFK, at the age of two.
That’s the history that I carried with me when I traveled to the nation’s capitol this past weekend.
On Friday afternoon, my plane landed at Dulles Airport. From there my journey took me on a two and a half hour drive to Waynesboro, Virginia, a small town nestled in the scenic and historic Shenandoah Valley.
Until a few months ago, I had never even heard of Waynesboro. So how did I end up there?
It all began a few months back with an e-mail that had been sent through my Web site. Addressed from Officer Mark Kearney of the Waynesboro Police Department, it was an invitation to come to Book ‘Em, an innovative book fair designed to raise awareness about the link between high illiteracy rates and high crime rates. Participating authors donate a minimum of 40 percent of the sales price of all books sold, money that goes directly to literacy programs. 
So that’s how the whole journey began. To this day, I’m not at all clear on how Officer Kearney even found me. But he did, so there I was in Waynesboro, on a chilly, soggy fall day, along with seventy-four other authors.
I was paired at a table with Paul Doyle, who had come by train from Boston. An ex-prizefighter who looks like he still packs quite a punch, Doyle recounts his days in the 1970s as an undercover operative with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in his book Hot Shots and Heavy Hits: Tales of an Undercover Drug Agent. I haven’t read his book yet, but, judging by some of the stories he shared with me while passing the time at Book ‘Em, I’m certain it’s a good read.
Other authors I met included fellow mystery writers Robert W. Walker, an ex-Chicagoan who has authored an incredible forty-three books (no, that’s not a misprint) and Maureen Robb, who, it turns out, once wrote for the agriculture magazine in California where my father now serves as managing editor (a small world, indeed). If you haven’t read either of them before, give them a try. You might just find that you like what they have to offer. Too many readers out there get stuck in a rut and just keep reading the same old, tired stuff. Experiment a little.
And I met a very interesting author from Richmond, Virginia, who was seated at the table next to me and goes by the unforgettable name of B.L.U.N.T., which, I found out, stands for Black Lady Under New Terms. She describes her approach as “straight up with no chaser,” and that about says it all. Check her out.
If you include me, that accounts for roughly 7 percent of the authors in attendance. There were many others that I had the great fortune of chatting with and many others that, due to time constraints or logistics, I never got the chance to even meet (next time, hopefully).
If there was any disappointment, it was that I didn’t sell more books. This was a familiar refrain I heard from many authors. Turnout, for reason or reasons unknown, was down considerably compared to the event’s first year. As an example, I participated in a panel discussion with five other mystery/suspense writers, in an expansive high school auditorium, and counted eight people in the audience.
Children’s authors seemed to fare better than those of us who write adult stories, and perhaps that’s the way it should be at a book fair whose purpose is to promote literacy. Still, you want to sell a lot of books, because, well, that’s the main reason you come. If people don’t come, you don’t sell books and the literacy programs that would benefit from those sales don’t get as much money.
Unfortunately, people just didn’t come. Certainly not in the numbers that we all thought they would.
In some ways, I feel most sorry for those who didn’t come. Truly, it is their loss. Kearney and his supporting cast put on a great show. Hopefully next time more will see it.
Officer Kearney sent an e-mail to all participating authors afterward. Although he sounded a little discouraged by the turnout, he was not down and not even close to being beaten. He is one of the most upbeat, optimistic people I’ve ever dealt with, and I suppose you have to be that way to do his job.
“You will hear more from me over the next few days, weeks, months etc.,” he wrote. “No matter what, you are a part of what I am doing. I’m determined to make the future of this country better in whatever way I can. So, thanks for helping me out and thanks for being a part of this. “
It was that kind of hopeful thinking that got me to come out to Waynesboro in the first place.
From Waynesboro, I drove in darkness through country roads that took me through parts of Virginia where my ancestors roamed some three hundred years ago, if the genealogical research done by my mother and I is accurate.
Late Saturday night, I made it to my birthplace, Alexandria, where I was lodging for two nights. I ordered room service and crashed.
Overnight, the skies finally cleared. Bright and early that morning, I beat the tourist buses and toured The Capitol Mall for the first time since I was a toddler. Take away the politicians, and it’s a pretty amazing place.
From there, I went to a less impressive mall, The Shops at Georgetown Center, where I did a book signing at Waldenbooks. I didn’t have huge expectations for this but I at the very least thought that the bookstore would know I was coming. They didn’t, even though my publicist had confirmed with them – not once, not twice, but three times. Which just goes to show that you should never have any expectations when it comes to book tours.
I will say that the assistant manager at Waldenbooks was quite apologetic and accommodating and quickly tried to make amends by setting up a table for me. In two hours there, I sold a couple of books. One went to a friend of a friend who was kind enough to make a special trip to see me. The other went to a woman who was touring D.C. with her son, Raffi, to whom she wanted the book signed.
Before I learned that she was from Austria, I asked the woman if her son is a baseball fan.
“No, I think he is now a fan of America, though,” she said.
Now there is at least one copy of my book in a home somewhere in Austria.
I signed eight other books that were put on display by the front desk, and then drove off to my final stop, which I thought was going to be a bookstore but turned out to be a Middle Eastern restaurant that used to also be a bookstore. A few weeks ago they went out of the bookstore business. That brings us back to rule No. 1: Never have any expectations when it comes to book tours.
I didn’t sell any books at that Middle Eastern restaurant, but I got a really nice dinner on the house. Unfortunately I came two days too late for the belly dancing. Next time I’ll have to plan better.
Reader Comments (1)