Countdown To Book Launch!

Updates on events, a book club, and the First Big Review

First! CBS New York and host Mary Calvi have selected The Mythmakers as one of three choices for their Summer book club. My novel is the only debut of the three, and is up against two bestselling authors, so competition is stiff. (Though, “I don’t want to show any bias,” said Calvi’s morning show co-host, Chris Wragge, this morning, “but that Mythmakers really piqued my interest, that’s pretty incredible.”) Make my day: cast a vote by Sunday, June 11—and maybe tell a few friends.

In which I attempt to record a 30 second video about the book. The new respect I have for anyone who has to move their face and speak on camera, let me tell you…

Yesterday Jean Hanff Korelitz reviewed the novel for the New York Times. We’ve known that a review was coming, but the Times doesn’t share the run date or reviewer pre-publication so it has mostly been a source of anxiety. Happily, the review is lovely. Korelitz called the book “great fun” and “assured” and “laudable,” and dives deep into its themes of writerly angst.

For more on the novel, here’s a conversation I had with the brilliant Lucy McKeon for Vogue, in which we delved into inspirations and narrative threads that go beyond writing-on-writing. There are a few more fun items to come, which I’ll round up next week. Thank you for bearing with me during this time of extreme self-promotion—in a few weeks we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming (absolutely random musings sent sporadically).

The book comes out this Tuesday, though friends in New York have already been reporting sightings at various Barnes & Noble locations. I’ve been putting off planning any kind of celebration that day—well, that’s not true, I did schedule a therapy session that morning. But I haven’t made dinner plans, I didn’t set up a party. I think a big part of me hasn’t wanted to jinx the launch.

The author Brandon Taylor wrote this about publishing his most recent novel, The Late Americans:

It’s always felt that whenever something good happens to me, that something bad must happen too in order to even out things. I think it comes from Baptist fatalism. But when my friend asked me a while ago what I would be doing to celebrate my pub day, I kind of stared at him and wondered what he meant. Why would I celebrate something nice. Why would I invite the potential for horrible vengeance from the universe by being happy about reaching a milestone. It seemed the height of irresponsibility.

But, he goes on, for the first time he did celebrate, with a dinner with a friend and a pavlova the size of the Ritz. And it was great! How nice, to be happy about a good thing. This all very much resonates, so maybe I’ll make a restaurant reservation. My parents and brother and their two dogs and Dan’s parents are all coming into town, so that’s a celebration in itself, too.

On Wednesday I’ll be at Mechanic’s Hall in Portland, Maine, in conversation with the brilliant, generous writer Lynn Steger Strong, author of the novels Hold Still, Want, and Flight. All three are terrific—after reading Want I downloaded the audiobook and it became my soundtrack to a lot of long pandemic walks, and we actually met after I included Flight in a monthly list of reads for Vanity Fair. Lynn sent me a nice thank you via Instagram, we realized we live fairly close by, and the very next day we ran into each other on a beach where we both walk our dogs. Kismet! The event is free, but you do need to RSVP.

On Friday I’ll be in New York at P&T Knitwear talking to the phenomenal Maris Kreizman, who I met years ago on the pre-publication book lunch circuit—that is, attending semi-monthly lunches held by publishers in nice restaurants throughout New York, where their buzziest authors chat with reviewers and editors and booksellers about their forthcoming books. These days, most of those events are now digital. It was always fun chatting with Maris, and then a few years ago I had the pleasure of editing a great piece she wrote about the publishing industry’s ongoing love affair with far right figures. Now she’s writing a book called I Want To Burn This Place Down, out next year from Ecco, and on Friday we’ll be chatting about The Mythmakers for a live audio recording of her podcast, The Maris Review! Same drill: free, but please sign up!

To close out with some non-book news, I spoke with Frieda Hughes, painter, poet, and daughter of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, for Vanity Fair. She has a new memoir out about the months she spent raising an orphaned baby magpie; the book and the bird are called George. The conversation was funny and sad and profound, here’s a little bit of her talking about raising an animal in the hopes it’ll be able to fly off on its own, someday:

I was very, very torn. Part of me wanted him to stay, desperately. But it doesn't matter how much we love people or animals. At some point, we are going to have to let go, if we don't die first. They are going to go off to a new life; children grow up and leave home. Some parents are really happy about that, other parents, less so.

It's the same with partners. Sometimes we die, sometimes we fall out of love. We only borrow people. I believe in making the most of it, but also I believe in not ever keeping anything or anyone prisoner of one's own affectionate imposition. There are people I love, but if they feel that they need to go, I ain't going to be the one to stop them. I would only wish them wings, as it were. Loving people and animals so that you can let them go when you need to, if you ever need to, I think that is the best—difficult, but the best.

That’s all this week. If you’re in range of forest fire smoke, stay safe, and no matter where you are consider donating to an organization like Sunrise Movement, working to enact change.

Hit the heart, send this to a friend, let me know what you’re reading in the comments. Thank you for being here!