Dear Readers of this Blog: I couldn’t be happier than to congratulate Sheri Booker on the publication of her first book Nine Years Under (notice I am not saying “debut” because I think it’s pretentious) about her experiences working in an inner city funeral home, coming of age there, amid the corpses, inside the embalming room, and among the mourners who looked to her, a teenager, for comfort and tissues. There was a lot to learn about death; there was even more to learn about life.
I have copies to give away to the top three funeral stories. I’ll see if I can get Sheri to judge.
And here’s some great early press: NPR: http://www.npr.org/2013/06/01/187086911/nine-years-in-a-baltimore-funeral-home Baltimore Sun Interview: http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/bs-ae-book-funeral-20130601,0,4451923.story Washington Post: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-05-29/entertainment/39591099_1_funeral-business-viewing-west-baltimor NPR news http://www.wypr.org/podcast/how-working-deadaffects-your-view-living
Filed under: Authors, Client, Memoir, Uncategorized | Tagged: African American, Death, Funeral Home, Memoir | 36 Comments »
Guys, guys, guys, guys. It’s Book Expo in New York. I just tripped over Scott Turow. I didn’t get invited to the Malcolm Gladwell party. I didn’t get invited to my own publisher’s party. That I take as a badge of pride. I ran into a book rep I haven’t seen since the Fifties, but he’s still wearing that bolo and I still remember Miami. I saw a machine that makes books on demand. I saw a vampire in broad daylight. I saw my beloved Japanese agent and she was wearing a gorgeous floral skirt that she bought at thrift shop, then corrected herself: Vintage. I met with a mother-daughter team who sell audio books. When I told the daughter she looked like Kim Kardashian she seemed to be insulted. I wandered through the booths thinking about all the publishing jobs I had, all the bosses I didn’t blow, all the massive excitement I used to feel helping books come into the world and learning how to galvanize my passion. Or how I could get high off the smell of books fresh out of the carton. Or the party I once threw for a first collection of stories, decorating my apartment with candles and peaches.
Just in case you missed it, Martin Short has signed with HarperCollins to write his memoir. The comic shared the following: “Although I’ve never read a book all the way through, I’m sure excited to write one. Mr. Short added: “I haven’t named my book yet, but I’m toying with the title ‘If I’d Saved, I Wouldn’t Be Writing This.’ ”
Today, I was accused of not being a free spirit. Guilty as charged. Not only am I not a free spirit, I might even experience a fair amount of animosity when in the presence of free spirits. The first time I knew that I wasn’t a free spirit was when I was about to graduate college. My roommate was pursuing his dream of being a modern dancer. The boy I had a crush on was moving to London to be a playwright. A woman I envied was going to Provincetown to write a screenplay. Me? I had accepted a job as the corporate file coordinator at a major investment bank because, well, the idea of trying to be a poet for real was not happening, not then, not now, not ever. And please don’t tell me about William Carlos Williams being a doctor and Wallace Stevens an insurance executive. And please don’t mistake promiscuity for being free ha ha ha ha. I am the emperor of my own damn wheelbarrow. I am a little old ugly man, cousin to Rumpelstilskin, friend to none. I am obsessive, compulsive, anal, retentive. Free spirits implode when they cross my path. Please don’t ask me to walk barefoot or wear flowers in my hair. Free spirit? I can barely manage spontaneity.
Betsy Lerner 