In the Stars

On a Saturday afternoon about six weeks ago, I received a call from a San Francisco bookstore.

“We’re sold out of your book,” the store manager informed me. “Can you come by to deliver a stack?”

“I’ll be right over,” I told him, glad that I always kept a couple boxes of books in my trunk for just this sort of occasion. It feels pretty damn good when a store sells out of your book. You get to walk in with a big box books, stand at the front desk signing them and hang out with the cute store clerk while she adheres the “Signed at [Insert Store Name Here]” sticker on the cover right next to your pen name.

“He wanted to me to get 18 from you,” the sticker lady said as I plopped the box next to the cash register. “Do you have time to sign them like last time?” She twirled her roll of stickers around her finger, her raven nail polish the exact color of my ever-ready Sharpie.

“But of course,” I responded, pulling 18 books out of the container of 24. I signed, she stuck. I signed, she stuck. We worked quietly, with a well-practiced rhythm.

When we finished signing and sticking, I bid her goodbye—hoping that we would meet again soon—and returned to my car with the remaining books. The trunk was a jumble of athletic equipment, books, magazines, maps and jumper cables. Full water bottles and empty water bottles. A now well-wrinkled plastic wrapped sheaf of dry-cleaned pants. I decided to restore some order to my hatchback, so I set the cardboard box down on the pavement and feng shuied the storage area.

My work complete, I drove on to my next commitment, some 40 miles away. When I arrived, I popped the hatch again to get my briefcase out of the trunk…and realized I was short one box of books. I had left the cardboard container with six copies of the novel on the ground after I had completed the makeover of my trunk.  I considered retrieving the books later on, but I did a little gas-price arithmetic in my head, and decided to leave them in San Francisco.

Maybe some people will find the books and give them a good home, I mused. Maybe they’ll tell friends…and so on…and so on…

                 * * *

Then, just last week, I received notice that at least one of my wayward books had indeed found a home.

Every once in a while…OK, about 12 times a day…I check on the book’s sales on Amazon.com. Every couple of weeks, I notice a new review has been affixed in pixels to Anecdotal’s page on Amazon. In mid-August, a brand-spanking new online review caught my eye.

“Vacuous Drivel” was the title of this little missive to the reading public authored by a gentleman we know only as “Joey.” Joey smacked my little book around quite a bit, giving it one star out of a possible five. I’d been lucky to receive some solid reviews on Amazon up to this point, as first friends, then acquaintances and then total strangers weighed in with their opinions on the novel.   But this new reviewer would have none of it.

Joey took special care to point out that he had found his copy of Anecdotal on the street…in a cardboard box…a part of a bunch of books that someone couldn’t even sell for a quarter a piece at a garage sale. From all indications, Joey had discovered one of my stray novels and found it to be just another mangy literary mutt.

Now, I just have this to say about Joey: the boy can write. I mean it. I can tell from just the little snippet he put on Amazon. He made excellent use of symbolism in his short anecdote; the image of the discarded cardboard box filled with unwanted books gets his point across quickly and effectively. It’s a concise, well-crafted skewering; the guy really knows how to string words together. 

Books ranging from War and Peace to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing to The Complete Illustrated Kama Sutra—each a masterwork in its own way—have all taken their lumps in the unfettered literary democracy that is Amazon.com.   Getting the one-star review is most definitely a rite of passage.   Somehow, I'll  find the strength to move on.

Check out Joey's review of Anecdotal--and, please, some of the others as well--at Amazon.  Cheers.

Comments

[Rosa]

I got an email through the harvard list about your talk next wed. I am inspired to try reading your book before the event though I haven't really read in a while just because you sound so damn sincere on your website. Anyway - good luck with everything, looks like the book will be a huge success. I think it's funny that amazon paired you with "Never Eat Alone" just because that guy also graduated from HBS.