so, i have this sort of unfortunate habit of assuming everyone understands my sense of humor and finds it charming. while, for the most part, this is endearing to people who know me it proves to make interactions with famous people somewhat awkward.
if you're any sort of reader you know who Wally Lamb is. you may think he's schmaltzy or oprah-ish or a womens writer, i happen to find him brilliant. he writes thise epic muti-generational novels that deal with redemption and longing and depression and happiness. they are amazing. like him or not, you have to admit that the ability to write a 900 page book is pretty outstanding. writers like that just blow my mind. i mean, there you are- living your life, raising kids and going to work and taking vacations and fighting with your spouse and in your spare time you're literally making something from nothing- creating people and settings and conflicts that don't exist outside of your own brain. how awesome.
anyway, that's not the point. the point is i love this writer. I Know This Much is True is definitely in my top 5 favorite books of all time. and i've read a lot of books.
so when i heard that Mr. Lamb was going to be doing a book signing in wilmette on monday i jumped at the chance to go. i even came home from my holiday in kentucky early so that i would have time to prepare. what i did not know is that the event was sponsored by some super hoity-toit millionaire lady readers club. despite trying my darndest to drag my various reader friends i couldn't get anyone to go with me. so i dragged my husband.
there were maybe 40 people there. and besides a baby that one lady was holding, i was by far the youngest one. also, i came in a sweater and beat up khakis and most of them were decked out in chanel jackets and pearls. orion was one of 4 men there.
Wally Lamb obviously knew these ladies, he greeted most of them by name. i got the sense that they sort of owned him, financially speaking. he's super charismatic anyway, but he was downright chaming these dames.
After his reading, he goes and sits down at the book signing table and one of the ladies asks everyone who'd like a book signed to please take a post-it from the stack being passed around and write out what you'd like him to say and stick it to the title page of your book. easy enough.
most of the ladies wrote things like "to ethel, best wishes wally lamb" and so i decided to write something funny. i was kind of bummed that i couldn't get any of my reader friends to come with, so i wanted to fool them into thinking that wally lamb and i became best friends and i gave him a bunch of my work and he was amazed and thrilled by how good it was. so on my post-it i wrote "Dear Grace, You are the most brilliant writer ever. Warm Regards Wally (no last name please)"
i thought it would make him laugh.
instead when i got up to the signing table he opened my book and sort of looked puzzeled at my post-it. "are you grace, or is this for grace?" he asked. "i'm grace" i said and then when he paused i added "it's just sort of a joke for my friends, i'm going to convince them that we're best friends now." he sort of chuckled uncomfortably and said "but i've never read anything you've written, how can i write this?"
i thought he was kidding and perfectly understood my sense of humor.
undeterred i replied, "can't you just trust me? isn't that what best-friendship is all about?"
he sort of heisitated before scrawling a brief message and closing my book. i was then hurried out by the perfumey old lady book signing nazis.
only on the way home did i realize what an awkward position i had put him in and then i began to feel humiliated. i wanted a famous writer to put in writing that i was an equally brilliant writer when for all he knows i could write Battlestar Galactica fan fiction. how embarassing. i thought it was be a funny joke, a good story to tell people. i forgot that this man has never met me, and it would be a slander to him if i put "a brilliant writer -wally lamb" on the jacket of my book of erotica.
oh well.
i wish i could say this is the first time something this has happened, but actually an equally humiliating encounter occured when i met Billy Collins a few years ago at the midwest literary festival. i went there to see him specifically, but was so stunned when i ran into him at a smoothie stall several hours before his reading that i (this is really embarassing) i actually drooled. my jaw fell open and i drooled. i managed to get out, "i just love your work" and then was in such a daze that when he replied "are you drunk?" all i could do was nod mutely even though i was not drunk at all and furthermore it was 8:30 in the morning.
god forbid i ever publish anything. famous authors will be lining up to tell people what an asshole i am.
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