Thisbe Nissen: Tour Diary
Preliminaries - Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5 - Day 6 - Day 7 - Day 8 - Day 9 - Day 10 - Day 11 -Day 12 - Day 13 - Day 14 - Day 15 - Day 16 - Day 17 - Day 18 - Day 19 - Day 20 - Day 21 - Day 22 - Day 23 - Day 24 - Day 25 - Day 26 - Day 27 - Day 28 - Day 29 - Home Diary -
July 25 -
July 26
Day 2: Saturday, June 2, Chicago, IL
Up at 8 for breakfast in the ludicrously expensive Hilton lobby with Elinor
Lipman and Jane Hamilton, who take me under their wings and make everything
feel better for a while. It sounds like the anxiety over reviews and the
looming what-people-think never really goes away, and though I hate to think
that I'm going to still feel like this much of a basket case five books down
the line, it also is reassuring to know that I'm not alone in this kind of
stress. I feel like I keep prying people for clues as to how you're supposed
to get through this sort of thing, listening to their stories of how they've
dealt and trying to learn something. I wish I had their poise and grace.
Jane has to leave to catch a flight out of Chicago, and Elinor introduces me
to Sonny Mehta (the Alfred A. Knopf of Alfred A. Knopf) who takes me under
HIS wing then and brings me with him to the Chicago Art Institute to look at
the Chagall window and wish there were sunlight streaming through it. But
the day is rainy and cold and we wander a few exhibits, wondering who on
earth decided that Southeast Asian art should segue directly into blown glass
from the 6th century into Prairie School furniture. The powers that be are
exercising curatorial paradigms we don't understand at all. We like the
pictures of young men and women in the Israeli army, by an artist whose name
I can't remember. The museum is calming, and Sonny's companionship gracious
and soothing. For a short time I stop chewing on the insides of my cheeks
and I take this as a good sign.
Back at the convention center I hang out at the Knopf booth waiting to meet
young Arthur Bradford who I am to accompany to the Printer's Row book fair
elsewhere in town where another author, Dalton Conley, is reading at three.
Dalton's memoir, Honky, about growing up as a white kid in a mostly
African-American and Hispanic housing project on the lower east side, is
being released in paperback by Vintage later this summer. We met Dalton last
night at the authors dinner. We like him a lot. Hanging out at the
Random House booth where Rachel Seiffert is signing copies of The Dark Room,
to a never ending line of eager readers, I run into Jonathan Lethem who I met
last fall when we read together at Brookline Booksmith. Later on he sends
his Italian translators over to talk to me. Marco and Martina have brought a
copy of ...Girls' Room... with them for me to sign and I snag the last copy
of Good People at the booth and give it to them as well. They have come from
Rome for BEA and are the sweetest people. I adore them. They tell me nice
things and I want to weep and take them home with me. They give me a
catalogue of their translation work. I find myself desperately hoping they
will translate my books and I will get to go to Italy and hang out with them.
I feel like they are long lost friends and I am sad when they have to say
good-bye.
But finally Arthur shows up and we go hear Dalton read and then head back to
the hotel to swim, sauna and whirlpool, all of which makes me so dehydrated
and ravenous I go back to my room and guiltily devour a bag of peanuts and
two bottles of juice from the minibar which must cost about fifteen dollars.
I realize I have forgotten to drink water -- any water at all -- today. I am
woozy. So what do I do? I go down to the Borders cocktail party and vulture
over the hors d'oeuvres table before I down two Bloody Marys and talk to a
lot of incredibly nice Borders reps who seem to be for the mostpart as
passionate about books as the independent booksellers I've met, all of which
is heartening. The sushi rolls are very good too.
I get whisked away for dinner at a very shi-shi Chicago restaurant called
Blackbird with some folks from Knopf publicity and also Arthur and Elinor and
Dennis Bock and Andrew Weil, the nutrition guru who cannot even get up to use
the restroom without being accosted by fans who want to know every secret to
long life and good health. I eat baby beet salad and think about my beets in
my garden back in Iowa and wonder how they're doing and if Chris and Josh
(boyfriend and housemate) are going to take care of them well while I'm gone.
Andrew and I talk about favorite beet and tomato varieties. (Note to self:
Cobra, he says, are an excellent large red. Try next year.) We talk a lot
about place and home. Everyone wants to know why Iowa, and I'm so happy to
talk about my little town. We hear stories of the wild javelinas on Andy's
property in Arizona where he's lived for something like half his life in a
town where his car happened to break down thirty years ago. People ask
Arthur questions about Vermont all of which I can now answer for him since
we've been sitting across from one another for about eighty-five of these
conversations already. I like having Arthur as my ally in all this. We've
now known each other about 24 hours and I'm talking to him like we've been
shooting the shit for the last twenty years. He's a good egg, Arthur
Bradford. We add two or so glasses of really good red wine to the alcohol
intake index (I feel like I'm starting to sound like Bridgit Jones, (which I
haven't read but saw the movie,) but really I'm just tallying the drinks so
you'll be prepared for how abominably horrible I feel tomorrow). After the
meal and before dessert we are served miniature squares of vanilla gelatin
with edible pansies on top. This would not go over well in Iowa. Pansied
jello. Our waiter is the biggest hipster I've seen in months with hair that
's Boogie Nights meets the Bride of Frankenstein. There's jungle music in
the bathrooms. A man at the bar is wearing a chartreuse cable knit sweater.
We wonder if chartreuse will be the new black.
Arthur and I take a cab to The Hideout where there's a benefit for The
Baffler and Open City. I meet Thomas Beller and Nick Pollack, who is just
about exactly what I thought he'd be like. He reads a piece and I can't
decide if it's horrifically offensive or hysterically funny but I can't help
laughing anyway and I imagine that this is just what Pollack wants from his
audience. I am loathe to oblige, but clearly do so regardless. I feel like I
don't belong in a city, miss Iowa, miss Chris, don;t even care how absolutely
not-witty I am, and drink a couple beers with Arthur who remains in my eyes a
good egg throughout. There are copies of Open City hanging around and I see
that my ex-boyfriend has a really beautiful poem on page 169 which makes me
sad and weepy and nostalgic and sad, and I drink a shot of Jack Daniels on
the rocks before Arthur and I head back to the hotel where we drink the two
bottles of Bailey's from the mini bar in my room before packing it in. Poor
Arthur has to get up for a nine o'clock flight. It's three when we say good
night and he swears he'll sign a galley of Dogwalker and leave it under my
door before he leaves in the morning. I don't even really feel drunk when I
go to sleep.
|