Excess Baggage

This is me shamelessly hawking Rescue Man, because, well, I DO have to sell books. But actually this post is about the wonderfullness of book clubs. (Yes, I’m aware, as spellcheck keeps telling me, that wonderfullness is not a real word, but it IS a real concept). Book clubs do what writers love best, which is connect them to the people they most care about–readers. Readers make writer’s words and ideas come alive. Without readers, the emotions of a book just float aimlessly in the cosmos–they’re a basketball flying through the air with no hoop, a radio signal with no receiver, a puck flying from a hocky player’s stick with no goal net to reach. I’ve been extremely lucky to have been invited to a number of book clubs now, and each time I’m touched by the power of books to reach into our psyches, to pluck at the strings of our experiences and make them sing. I’m grateful for all the readers who’ve shared their stories with me—their losses, their joys, their sorrows, their lives. It’s the closing of the circle.

Of course, it didn’t.  Mono no aware.  

This is the look of a cat who has just realized that Rescue Man contains absolutely no mention of a cat anywhere in its 279 pages. There is a dog named Max, but that is hardly a comfort. The author apologizes for this glaring omission, and promises to rectify it in the sequel.

Behold Rescue Man on a genuine Noguchi coffee table, sent by a reader with impeccable taste (in both tables and reading matter). For those of you who have read the book, you’ll recognize the irony in this image, since a Noguchi coffee table makes an appearance in the glass penthouse of Miranda Holloway, a love interest of Rescue Man’s protagonist, Will Thompkins. In truth, the Noguchi coffee table is witness to a rather racy scene between Miranda Holloway and Will, who is frankly way out of his league dealing with both Miranda AND the Noguchi. But if you want to get the full story, you’ll have to read the book…

How far can a paperback travel? Well, to Haifa, Israel if you happen to have a brilliant jet-setting Israeli friend. It’s also a convenient marketing tool, since  that same friend happens to be a talented designer who can manage to make a croissant and cafe mocha look as though it just stepped out of a Parisian cookbook. Also, let’s face it, cafes are #RescueMan’s native habitat.

What is an author to do? There are four stages of grief. First, denial (until the sales figures start spiraling down). Next, a great deal of hand-wringing and negotiating (maybe if I keep hitting refresh on the Amazon sales page), followed by crying and finally copious amounts of drinking. I’ve heard there is a fifth stage, acceptance, but it appears to have eluded me.

How I love the smell of ink in the afternoon! At last it’s arrived. 25 copies of the book I have toiled over lovingly for years, delivered to my door unceremoniously by my local UPS delivery man. And even though he complains that the box is overweight, and the dogs are coming perilously close to biting his calves as I sign for it, I feel in my bones that this is one of those life-altering moments of self-fulfillment that I will never forget. I am heading to the fridge to drink a tall beer to celebrate when it hits me: Now I actually have to sell it.  

Woooop! We have lift-off. Now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Apple ibooks.

Rescue Man (and its author) in their native habitat...

So close...

Oh, and by the way, they are 6 by 9 inches.

I’m known in the Berkeley café and bar scene, mostly for my propensity for drinking large quantities of Trumer Pilsner, and for my considerable talent in making a lunch hour stretch to two. Rescue Man is my first novel.

Will Thompkins, Rescue Man

Will Thompkins, Rescue Man

So your dream of having an agent who will magically make your novel a best-seller, or even help it become a quiet, but well-reviewed little indie book has taken a beating. It’s kind of like getting your jacket caught in the car door without realizing it, and you drive a long way down a dirt road with it flapping in the wind, and when you do finally liberate it, it’s been turned into a mangled, greasy, unrecognizable knot of fabric with tire-tracks all over it. You go to to the local bar to drown your sorrows and your writer friends, feeling your pain, tell you to keep the faith. Maybe it’s just the beer, but you don’t notice that your friends are looking away, grimacing at their own memories of the long and dirty journey they have traveled on that very same road—with their jackets caught in the car door.

Uh...no, actually, the entire premise of the book requires that the main character be male, and all I have is a Facebook page that I use to post pictures of my dog and vacation photos meant to make my friends jealous at what a fabulous life I’m living.  I spend the rest of my spare time ...well, writing. And THAT is when you hear the loud thud. The thud that signals the wheels of the literary publishing machine have come to a grinding halt.