Breath and Bones and Brooke Shields

I think something like this has happened to just about everyone who has published a book:

     As I was unlocking my front door yesterday, my neighbor called out from his porch that he wanted to introduce me to a friend; the two of them were smoking cigars and watching traffic. “Susann is a writer,” he said, “who just came back from a big book tour.”

      “Oh, really? What do you write?” his friend asked.

      “Novels.” When he didn’t seem to know that meant, I explained further: “Stories. Fiction. Things I make up.”

     I was about to launch into a quick description of my new one, Breath and Bones, which follows the romp of a tubercular model through the nineteenth-century Old West, as a quest for a lost lover takes her from a Danish orphanage to a plural marriage in Utah, then to Colorado bordellos and a sanatorium run on the principles of electrical stimulation—it’s comic, see, and it’s about creativity and relationships and identity …

     But the neighbor’s friend saved me some trouble by asking, “Would I know who you are?”

     I felt pretty safe in answering, “No.” Humbly I admitted, “I’m not famous.”

     He turned back to his cigar.

     Being famous has indisputable advantages; fame will help you sell books, which means you’ll earn money to give you more time to write books. As a case in point, one of my best friends told me today that after finishing Breath and Bones, she read Brooke Shields’s memoir about postpartum depression. Brooke Shields has done a number of remarkable things in her life, and one would certainly not begrudge her fame and the various perks it brings. (I in fact am not sure I would like to be famous myself; I’ve heard there’s a lot of inconvenience involved. The bother of starring in Pretty Baby and announcing to America that nothing gets between you and your Calvins, for example.) But I am pretty certain that my publishers would like me to be more famous than I am—it would make their job so much easier. I don’t think Ms. Shields has any trouble getting reviews, and if she wants to read in a particular bookstore, I’m sure they’re happy to accommodate her. When you’re famous, all the publicity you need is your own name.

     In the absence of preexisting fame, I thank the heavens for Caitlin Hamilton, who has been the publicity director for both my novels (they’ve had the same editor, too, though at two different publishing houses—first BlueHen/Penguin Putnam for the medieval novel Mirabilis, now Unbridled Books for Breath and Bones). I am painfully shy and have a terrible time putting myself forward; doing some promotional things can feel like choosing teams for PE in junior high— Which one will the reviewer pick? Whom will the bloggers cheer? Your success depends on manifesting either literary (athletic) talent or general likability—preexisting popularity and fame.

     Somehow it’s all a lot easier, and even enjoyable, once I know that people actually want to play with me. I’ve had a great time with store events and interviewers and talking to booksellers at the MPBA annual convention; I’ve even sold a few copies that way … but I’m not the person to write or call all these people myself and ask for attention. (I do write and thank them for that attention afterward, however; even shy people try to cultivate manners.)

     So it’s wonderful to have someone taking care of the first step—introducing me to bloggers and reviewers and booksellers. Having worked for one major trade publisher, and having seen friends’ books flourish or languish—sometimes surprisingly—I am pretty well aware that a publisher’s support is the biggest factor in determining how widely known a writer becomes. This should be no news to anyone, but somehow it surprises about half the people I say it to. To be honest, sometimes it surprises me, too, especially when I see someone with a great book that just isn’t getting the attention it deserves. Maybe the surprise comes at the injustice of the fact that landing a good publicist is almost like being famous: To a large degree, it’s beyond your control, but such an enviable blessing. It doesn’t seem fair, but there we are. We can’t all be Brooke Shields, though being Brooke Shields makes it much easier to hold a conversation on your porch and enter your own home comfortably.

     And yet, lately, half the time I’ve gone into a bookstore for a reading, the booksellers have announced as soon as I walked in the door: “We don’t tend to get a lot of people for these things.” They go on to mention some incredibly famous person—Walter Cronkite or Elvis Presley—who was there just last week, and for whom no one turned up! This makes the next ten or fifteen minutes sheer agony, waiting for at least one of the five chairs they’ve set out to find an occupant. So far, I’ve been lucky and had from four to seventy people at a given reading. Thank god for good friends, loyal colleagues, and ex-lovers who’ve scattered across the country.

     Maybe the lesson here, if there is one, is to date as many people as possible in your youth; then you’ll have an audience for your fiction later on. This strategy is not so different from what Brooke Shields has done, though perhaps more time consuming, and I have resolved to learn as much from her as I can. I’m sure my neighbor, and my neighbor’s friend, would approve. So here goes: Nothing gets between me and my, uh, book jacket.