From the Mail Bag

For some reason Mondays bring the most reader mail. I don't know if it's because people have more time over the weekend and decide that writing to me is preferable to cleaning out the garage or what, but the mailbox always seems to be particularly stuffed come the start of the week.

Today I received two e-mails that--for very different reasons--made me happy. Here's the first one. (Note: I've changed the writers' names, but the text is unedited.)

Mr. Ford,

Were you born a homosexual or did you choose to become one (long story short I'm writing a research paper for my English 104 class and I came upon your book, and I just HAD to email you)?

Thank You,

Debbie in Dubuque

I get a lot of mail from students writing papers, mostly from kids who have read one of my young adult novels. Usually they arrive on Sunday evening and end with "my paper is due tomorrow morning, so please write me back before 8:30." Also popular is the "My teacher told us to write to someone who wrote a book and ask what it's like to write a book and where do you get your ideas so I picked you and could you send me a signed book kthxbi" letter.

Patrick tells me not to answer these letters. But here's the thing--they're not letters, they're blackmail notes. Oh, they might sound all cute and friendly, but read between the lines. Do you see it? Right there? The part that says:

"You could ignore this but if you do I'll tell all my friends that you're mean and your book sucks, and they'll tell all their friends, and then I'll tell my cousin Amy in New Jersey and she'll tell all her friends, and this summer I'll tell everyone at Camp Monkewinnemac and then pretty soon every kid in the whole United States will hate you, and once I write to my penpal Jeanine in France so will everyone in Europe, and also I'll tell everyone in my Jonas Brothers online group and then it will be all over the internet and you might as well die."

So it's a problem.

But I like Debbie's letter. First, the subject line was: REALLY Quick Question! Clearly, she understands that a world-famous author such as myself is terribly busy and can't possibly have time to interact with his readers. A clever girl, our Debbie. Thoughtful. It makes me wonder about her. Who is she? What is this English 104, and what kind of teacher does Debbie have who is encouraging the students to write to world-famous homosexual authors? It gives me much to think about. Why, it's practically the foundation for a thrilling novel!

Then there's today's second e-mail.

Mike, I am a Viet Nam veteran. I remember the exact moment I came out to myself. I was sitting on a pile of dirt, filling sandbags, getting ready for the Tet holiday, 1972, feeling like shit. And a sergeant walked by on his way to the shower, with only a towel wrapped around his waist and flip/flops on his feet. I realized whatever joy, happiness, fulfillment there is in this life; I would find it only with another man. Your descriptions of the night of the draft lottery, the first smell of Viet Nam when getting off the plane; these are memories that few people I know can identify with. And you described them so well.

Thank you.

A Soldier

Now, I know what novel this man is talking about. It's Full Circle. And I've received this letter before. Not the same one, of course, but similar ones. And every time they make me cry.

I am not one of those writers who gets feelings of well-being and contentment from having written a book. I am one of those writers who is almost constantly overwhelmed by feeling that there isn't a point to anything, including the writing of books. At least until I read letters like this one. Then I remember that there is a point--sometimes you tell a story that allows someone else to realize that their story is important.

This is a good feeling. It usually doesn't last long, sometimes an hour, or a day, maybe a week or two at most. But often it's enough to lift that oppressive wet wool blanket of doubt that often makes writing an impossible task. For me, anyway. I know there are writers who get up every morning and do cartwheels over the thought of working all day. But I hate those writers and don't talk to any of them, and so occasionally I need people like A Soldier to remind me why I do this.

So thanks to Debbie in Dubuque and A Soldier for brightening my day. Debbie, I hope you get an A. Soldier, it was an honor to capture some of your experience in my novel.

Oh, what did I answer Debbie? I told her I was born fabulous and grew into it.

Book News!

Two good things today.

First up, I got the cover for my next Kensington novel, The Road Home. After making a slight detour with the cover for What We Remember we're back to the look of the earlier novels. Once again the cover art is by painter Steve Walker. It's called "Tender in the Grass."

The Road Home is a "smaller" story than my last couple books have been. It focuses on one man--Burke Crenshaw--who following an accident finds himself recuperating in his childhood home in Vermont with the help of his widower father. When Burke, who is a photographer, becomes interested in the story of a Civil War soldier who lived in the area, he begins a journey of discovery that unearths not only the secrets of the past but of Burke's own life.

Oh, did I mention that there's also a torrid little romance involving the son of Burke's best friend from high school (with whom Burke once had a never-again-mentioned encounter)? And that during the course of his investigation into the Civil War mystery Burke meets an oddly-appealing librarian who forces him to rethink everything he believes about what it means to be happy?

No? Well, that's all in the book too. You can find out for yourself when it comes out in June of 2010.

Of more immediate interest is the latest review for Jane Bites Back. This one comes from Kirkus.

Keen readers will perhaps pick up on the semi-snarky remark in the closing lines of the review. Do not be alarmed. Kirkus reviews are required by law to contain at least one bitter morsel*, and for them this is radiant praise. I am very pleased.

And now to their verdict:

Armed only with her vampire powers, 192-year-old Jane Austen hits the publicity trail to promote what fond readers think is her first novel. Though the standard reference works agree that the author of Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park died in 1817, they’re all wrong. After being turned into a vampire by a bite from a contemporaneous celebrity author, Jane Austen faked her own death and went into hiding. At first she sought the company of her own kind, but she drifted away from vampires and ended up as Jane Fairfax, owner of Flyleaf Books in cozy Brakeston, N.Y.

The only blots on her happiness have been her inability to return the love of widowed carpenter Walter Fletcher—what would she tell him when he grew older but she didn’t?—and the 116 rejection slips awarded her novel Constance. (There’s some justice here, since excerpts employed as chapter epigraphs are rather overripe for Austen.) Now, however, the second of these trials seems to be at an end. Kelly Littlejohn of Browder Publishing loves Constance and wants to publish it in time for the beach-reading season. Jane promptly scores a spot on the TV show Comfort and Joy and an interview with Entertainment Weekly. Soon after she’s invited to a conference on romance fiction and Constance debuts as #1 on the NYTBR list. But Jane’s Cinderella story is comically curdled by her discomfort with airplanes, makeup and publicity, the need to keep her private life private, dark accusations of plagiarism—not to mention her thirst for the blood of an English professor, one of the talk-show hosts and, most satisfyingly, the philistine author of a self-help volume entitled Waiting for Mr. Darcy.

Ford (What We Remember, 2009, etc.) approvingly cites Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but his own mashup is better integrated, more knowledgeable about Austen and considerably funnier—although not quite as funny as his gorgeous premise might suggest. First of a promised trilogy.

We'll just ignore that "not quite as funny" part. It's a fine line. Go too over the top and they accuse you of parody. Try to keep it just this side of that line and you're "not quite as funny." And so it goes.

*This is not true. No one makes them do it. They just do.

Ah-Choo!: Part 2

I'm still sick. I know, it's annoying. Really annoying. I'm all for lazing about the house in one's pajamas, but even that gets old after a few days. And let me tell you something--two seconds after Halloween is over all of the delicious horror movies disappear and are replaced by Christmas crap, so it's not even fun to watch TV.

By the way, don't even get me started on the ghastliness that is QVC and the Home Shopping Network, which you should never watch after loading up on Tylenol PM. What the hell am I going to do with three Advent calendars?

Anyway, I haven't gotten much done in the way of work. Or, really, in the way of anything. Mostly I've just been lying around complaining about how hot it is and sucking on Otter Pops, the last box of which Patrick found hidden at the back of the freezer at Safeway.

But I have managed a couple of things in the past few days, so here we go.

1. I voted.

I wasn't going to, but Patrick made me. He also made me a handy list of how to vote. I mostly followed it, although one of the propositions was worded oddly and it was difficult to read what with the Robitussin flowing through my veins and I might have inadvertently voted to allow Gavin Newsom to be declared King of San Francisco.

Our polling station is at a house a few blocks away. The woman has dogs, and they were barking because they were annoyed at being locked up for the day. In case you're interested, they're cattle dogs ( I asked). Oh, and on the way home we met two enormous bloodhounds, one of which is having surgery on her back this week to repair a ruptured disk. That's not something you run into every day.

By the way, I know I look like crap in this picture. Did I mention that I'm sick?

2. I listened to the new Tegan and Sara album

I downloaded Sainthood last week when it came out, but didn't listen to the whole thing until this weekend. I love it. My favorite tracks are "The Cure," "On Directing," "Hell," and "Paperback Head," but honestly there's not a bad song on here.

I want Tegan and Sara to be my best friends. We would sit around watching B-movies and eating SweeTarts and saying absolutely hysterical things. Also, when they're on the road we would call each other on the phone every Thursday and critique the Project Runway outfits. And of course they would let me sing backup on their next album.

3. I watched Sauna.

I've been waiting for this to come out on DVD ever since my friend Douglas Clegg told me about it earlier this year. And it was worth the wait.

Marketed as a horror movie, this beautiful film is much more than that. Set in 1585 at the end of the 25-year war between Russia and Sweden/Finland, the story centers on two brothers who are part of a delegation sent to map the new boundary lines between Finland and Russia. One brother has spent years as a soldier, while the other has been sheltered at university.

I won't reveal too much of the story except to say that the delegation stumbles upon a strange village and are forced to confront the decisions they've made and the deeds they've done during the war. Ultimately the film asks whether or not those choices are inevitable, what is right and wrong (particularly during war), and if there is really any way to atone for these choices. I found it a moving and visually stunning exploration of the way in which the effects of our decisions extend far beyond our own lives.

One word of caution: The subtitles suck. (My favorite line is along the lines of, "This food is not even good enough for a butt.") Thankfully, the acting is excellent and you'll figure out what's happening despite the obviously inadequate translation.

Okay, so I haven't done much in the past four days. I'm sure there was other stuff I just can't remember right now. Did I mention that I'm sick? And the day isn't over yet. I could still accomplish a thing or two.

But first I'm going to take a nap.