Please welcome Nick Laird, author of Utterly Monkey, to the Olive Reader. This week, he offers insights — some humorous, some harrowing — about hitting the road to promote his debut novel. We’re sending him around the country this week, and he writes immediately below about his experiences in the Northeast on the first two days of the tour. -JW
New York goes well. The Barnes & Noble reading seems busy. An old friend from Uni turns up out of the blue. My cousin Ruth turns up as well. I’m nervous but quite enjoy it.
In Boston a lovely woman called Robin Young interviews me on the radio and seems to like the book.
That evening I arrive at the bookstore in Boston at seven twenty. The reading is meant to start in ten minutes and no-one has turned up. That’s no-one as in none, zero, zilch, f*ck-all. I mooch about the poetry section and listen to a woman on the other side of the book shelves whisper about the fact that no-one has turned up to one of the book sellers. Then she starts describing to her how “you know, I liked On Beauty [my wife’s last novel] a lot but I gave it a mixed review, a very mixed review in the multi-cultural magazine I write for”. Multi-cultural! I try to concentrate on being Zen. I am a Zen master. I am the king of cool. I am ice-cold in Alexandria.
No-one else seems to have turned up for the reading. It’s seven thirty. I am super-chilled. I am absolute zero.
We wait. I’m still hiding in the poetry section of the book store. For a brief second I consider legging it out of the shop and hailing a cab. Three times the owner tells me that people usually arrive late. Then he tells me lots of people have rang about the reading and will turn up. He tells me his friends are all coming. Someone else says that it said on the news that tonight is the coldest night of the year. Me, I’m no longer cool. I’m burning up. Embarrassment is a sticky hot emotion. My neck is sweating. My ears prickle with heat. Four people turn up. Two girls who work in the bookshop make it six. We start fifteen minutes late.
The reading is at the back of the shop and up a flight of stairs. It’s actually a converted stable. Everything is concrete. The venue feels like a priesthole, a hidden place. We should be plotting some radical overthrow of the government in this sort of space or running a gambling den.
I read a poem. A man arrives, carrying a coffee. We’re up to seven people. I read a section of the novel. It seems to take forever. I can feel myself aging. I finish on a poem set in Boston.
Afterwards I sit down at a table piled high with my novels. The latecomer comes up and hovers. He stands and looks at me, then says, “Nice to meet you, I have a question for you.” “Okay,” I say. He says, “Is Zadie Smith here with you?” “No, she’s not,” I say. I realize that that’s his question. He stares at me for a bit longer then edges backwards. He doesn’t buy a book. I sit and sign some stock. The “multi-cultural reviewer” comes up and lifts up the novel. She flicks through it and makes an indecisive purr. I look at her. She flicks through it some more. I consider telling her not to bother buying it. She weighs it in her hand. Eventually she decides to take it, then tells me just to sign my name in it, as “you don’t know me, you’ve never met me before and you’ll never see me again”.
For a second I think about making her swear to it.
Austin tomorrow. At least it’ll be warmer.
NICK LAIRD
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