Tour Wrap
Under the heading of “Better Three Months Late Than Never,” I thought I’d better put the Gutshot Straight January world tour to bed.
After finishing up the Midwest leg of the tour, I flew out of Milwaukee and into Phoenix. This was late January, remember, and Phoenix – not, historically, one of my favorite cities – never felt so good. And I started to understand, at a much deeper level than I ever had before, one key reason for the post-war westward migration from Rust to Sun Belt.
I drove straight down to Tucson, where thanks to Priceline I spent the night at a luxe but spookily deserted mountain resort (no blood pouring from the elevators, but glassy-eyed children in 19th-century school uniforms did keep popping up freaking everywhere). The next day I dropped by Clues Unlimited to sign stock and chat with owner Chris Acevedo about books, dogs, and lovely Tucson (I definitely want to go back there).
After that, I turned around and motored back up to Phoenix, where I had a mid-day reading at the Velma Teague Library in Glendale. Lesa Holstine, a nationally-syndicated reviewer of crime and mystery fiction, runs the terrific reading series at the Velma Teague, and I had a great time there (as well as a excellent homestyle Mexican food at a restaurant across the street from the library).
From Glendale I drove across town to Scottsdale for an evening event at the legendary Poisoned Pen Bookstore. There was a nice turn-out, and the audience included fellow writer Jeffrey Siger, author of acclaimed thrillers set in Greece, and Sarah Spears, my former student, former dogsitter, current good friend, and I-hope-not-but-if-necessary my future high-powered criminal defense lawyer. Patrick Millikin was one hell of an excellent moderator, grilling my ass backwards and forwards with a series of thoughtful, penetrating, and funny questions. I answered them all with as much truth as I could muster.
From Phoenix (where, again, thanks to Priceline I stayed at a luxe but spookily-deserted desert resort), I flew to San Diego. I hit Mysterious Galaxy to sign stock and laugh pretty much non-stop at the very funny Linda Tonnesen. From there I drove up to Orange County, where my cousin Jim Harrigan (you remember him from this post) and his wife, Katy, hosted a party for me. I’d started my tour with family, in Austin, so it was great to end it that way. I’d been in the air when the Today Show aired the segment where John Searles picked Gutshot Straight as one of the winter’s best reads, but Jim had DVRed it for me so I got to see my book jacket’s national TV debut on the big screen. Jim had already gone seriously above and beyond in the generosity department, but this was the mother of all book parties – complete with a chocolate fountain and lots of saucy blonde California girls (see photo). I was pretty tired when I got to the party, but full of energy by the time I left, thanks to all the interesting people I got a chance to chat with. I won’t name them, at the risk of leaving someone out, but they provided me with enough material for another two or three books.
After finishing up the Midwest leg of the tour, I flew out of Milwaukee and into Phoenix. This was late January, remember, and Phoenix – not, historically, one of my favorite cities – never felt so good. And I started to understand, at a much deeper level than I ever had before, one key reason for the post-war westward migration from Rust to Sun Belt.
After that, I turned around and motored back up to Phoenix, where I had a mid-day reading at the Velma Teague Library in Glendale. Lesa Holstine, a nationally-syndicated reviewer of crime and mystery fiction, runs the terrific reading series at the Velma Teague, and I had a great time there (as well as a excellent homestyle Mexican food at a restaurant across the street from the library).
From Glendale I drove across town to Scottsdale for an evening event at the legendary Poisoned Pen Bookstore. There was a nice turn-out, and the audience included fellow writer Jeffrey Siger, author of acclaimed thrillers set in Greece, and Sarah Spears, my former student, former dogsitter, current good friend, and I-hope-not-but-if-necessary my future high-powered criminal defense lawyer. Patrick Millikin was one hell of an excellent moderator, grilling my ass backwards and forwards with a series of thoughtful, penetrating, and funny questions. I answered them all with as much truth as I could muster.
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The Frozen Midwest
After lunch, I knocked out a few more drop-in signings in the Chicago area, then drove three hours to Madison, Wisconsin, for my appearance at Booked for Murder. It was, by a pretty long stretch, the smallest turn-out of the entire tour: one guy. But he was a very interesting one guy (I learned a lot of surprisingly cool stuff about embedded traffic sensors that I’m going to steal for a future project, bet on it) and BOOKSTORE OWNER Sara Barnes was a delightful host who provided chocolate cookies.
That infusion of sugar was necessary, because after the event I had to drive an hour and a half back to Milwaukee, where Priceline had hooked me up at the downtown Hyatt, on the site of which in 1912 an insane man tried to assassinate Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt was on his way to address a political rally, and his life was saved when the manuscript of his (characteristically lengthy) speech, in the pocket of his coat, stopped the assassin’s bullet. How’s that for the power of the written word?
Did I mention that the windchill in Milwaukee was something like forty degrees below zero? Teddy Roosevelt was wearing a heavy winter coat when the assassin shot him, and that helped stop the bullet too. I’m not sure what lesson to draw from that.
Next: Sunny and Warm Thank God Arizona.
Minnesota Nice
A quick aside: I know “Minnesota nice” is a stereotype, but a lot of the people I encountered in Minneapolis – car rental clerks, coffee shop baristas, etc. – did seem preternaturally NICE. By that I guess I mean polite, helpful, generous, solicitious, genuinely concerned with my well-being and safety (and not at all pushy when, for example, I declined the collision-damage waiver: “No problem!”). On the other hand, these same people also tended to be quite reserved – they were “nice” without being what those of use who have spent time in the American South would consider “friendly.” I thought this was kind of interesting, and if it shows up in a future novel of mine, you read it here first.
Next: Chicago, Madison, Milwaukee.
Midtown America
My red-eye flight from Seattle to Newark was uneventful, if by “event” you mean any kind of sleep whatsoever. I was too tired to calculate how many, or few, hours of sleep I’d had over the past few days, but I did manage despite my grogginess to find the shuttle and make it to my hotel in Manhattan – the downtown Marriott, at less than half the lowest published rate via Priceline (I may need to dedicate my next book to Priceline, without which this tour would not have been possible).
After checking in, I took the subway to midtown, where any fatigue I might have been experiencing fell instantly away in the charming presence of two friends from college, Becky Westerlund Coletta and Katie Duffy Gallivan. They took me to lunch at an old-school steakhouse with a lunch menu straight out of Mad Men (crab cakes, filet mignon, creamed spinach), and we had a great time catching up. Becky, Katie, and I attended Loyola University in New Orleans, where we worked on the Maroon, the college newspaper. Those days (and long nights) at the Maroon were a blast, and I take the position that there’s no better way to become a better writer than to be surrounded by massively-talented friends who are as fiercely supportive as they are competitive.
I didn’t want lunch to end, but the business of selling books waits for no author. I spent the rest of the day with the brilliant, delightful, wonderful, did-I-mention-brilliant? editor of Gutshot Straight, Peggy Hageman. It was Peggy’s last week at William Morrow, so the afternoon was a lot more than just tinged on my part with sadness. Still, it was great to spend some time with Peggy as we trekked around Manhattan signing books. The highlight was a stop at the legendary Otto Penzler’s legendary The Mystery Bookshop. Gutshot Straight was one of their January selections, so there were a lot of books to sign. That gave me the opportunity for an enlightening chat with one of the Mystery Bookshop's ace staff members, Ian Kern (in photo, with Peggy).
After that, Peggy and I met a couple of people from Morrow for drinks: my new editor, Gabe Robinson, a fascinating guy who seems – excellent sign – much smarter than me; and my favorite marketing guru in the universe, Jean Marie Kelly. For the record – and it pains me to say this, because I’d prefer to take all the credit for myself – any success that Gutshot Straight happens to achieve in the marketplace is due primarily to the efforts and expertise of Jean Marie, publicist Joanne Minutillo (who didn’t join us for drinks because she had the good sense to be in Florida, not New York, on this Friday evening in January), Danielle Bartlett, and everyone else at HarperCollins/Morrow. Holy shit, they’ve been amazing – that’s all I’ll say because, like I said, it pains me to give credit where credit is due when that credit is not due me.
While in New York, I also had the pleasure of meeting up with Jay Neugeboren, my former professor and thesis adviser at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Jay taught me a few things about fiction writing. As in: just about everything. When I started the MFA program at UMass, I didn’t, for example, know what a third-person limited perspective was. Nor, until I took Jay’s workshop, did I truly understand the power and the glory of a well-structured declarative sentence. Jay also taught me the gospel importance of economy. I still have one old short story manuscript of mine (20 pages long) on which Jay wrote a single comment: “Great work. Cut seven pages and send it out.”
Next: The Frozen Midwest.
After that, Peggy and I met a couple of people from Morrow for drinks: my new editor, Gabe Robinson, a fascinating guy who seems – excellent sign – much smarter than me; and my favorite marketing guru in the universe, Jean Marie Kelly. For the record – and it pains me to say this, because I’d prefer to take all the credit for myself – any success that Gutshot Straight happens to achieve in the marketplace is due primarily to the efforts and expertise of Jean Marie, publicist Joanne Minutillo (who didn’t join us for drinks because she had the good sense to be in Florida, not New York, on this Friday evening in January), Danielle Bartlett, and everyone else at HarperCollins/Morrow. Holy shit, they’ve been amazing – that’s all I’ll say because, like I said, it pains me to give credit where credit is due when that credit is not due me.
While in New York, I also had the pleasure of meeting up with Jay Neugeboren, my former professor and thesis adviser at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Jay taught me a few things about fiction writing. As in: just about everything. When I started the MFA program at UMass, I didn’t, for example, know what a third-person limited perspective was. Nor, until I took Jay’s workshop, did I truly understand the power and the glory of a well-structured declarative sentence. Jay also taught me the gospel importance of economy. I still have one old short story manuscript of mine (20 pages long) on which Jay wrote a single comment: “Great work. Cut seven pages and send it out.”
Next: The Frozen Midwest.
Coast to Coast
Next up was one of the more challenging, Amazing Race-esque stretches of the Gutshot Straight book tour: from Oakland to Seattle for an event at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, then right back to SEA-TAC for an overnight flight to Newark, followed by a day of drop-in signings at bookstores in Manhattan.
I left Oakland before dawn, in a slashing, driving rain. This did not bode well for the weather up in Seattle, but miraculously (for January in Seattle) the sun was shining and the sky a brilliant clear blue. I grabbed my Pricelined rental car (free upgrade approximately sixty percent of the time if you ask nicely) and headed downtown, where I had a fantastic time at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop. I already knew I’d like owner JB Dickey – in a newsletter review of Gutshot Straight he’d called me “the unholy spawn of Carl Hiaasen and Don Winslow” – but he was even more hilarious in person than I’d imagined. And the other bookseller on duty, Fran Fuller, was just as funny, albeit in a quieter, more evil (her term, not mine!) way.
It was at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop that I experienced one of my more memorable tour moments. A woman wandered in off the street and over to the desk where I was signing. I started telling her about my book, but it turned out she’d come in because she’d spotted a pigeon outside with an injured leg and was worried about it. After lengthy and involved negotiations with JB, she agreed to buy one of my books if JB agreed to call the city and have them rescue the pigeon with the injured leg. So it was win-win for everybody – me, JB, woman, pigeon! From then on my touring slogan has been: One book at a time, one bird at a time. (That’s the actual photo, at right, of JB on the phone to the city.)
I could have happily stayed a few more days in Seattle, just hanging out with JB and Fran, talking books, bacon, and brush-strokes (JB is a visual artist), but after a quick bowl of excellent clam chowder at Pike Place Market, I had to bounce back to the airport, drop off the rental car, coerce a couple of passing flight attendants to pose with my book, and then catch the Continental red-eye to Newark so I could make it to the pit stop ahead of the Male Beauty Queens and the Dyslexic Calf-Roping Sisters.
Next: New York City.
Next: New York City.