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LESSONS LEARNED ON THE BOOK TOUR

Making David Sedaris Laugh Writer

THE PRACTICAL

P O E T S & WR I T E R S 99

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HEN your novel is first published all thebook snobs ask, “Are you reading at the

Tattered Cover? At Dark Delicacies?How about Cody’s? Or Barbara’s? OrPowell’s?” A book tour is just as exhaust ing as doing old-time vaudevil le on, say, the Shubert circuit. It includesappearing at the Stra nd in New York City…Books &Books in Miami, Florida…Lemuria in Jackson, Missis-sippi. It’s a long series of one-night engagements sand-

wiched between early-morning flights and t rain rides.Left Bank Books in Saint Louis…Rainy Day Books inKansas City…Malaprop’s in Asheville, North Carolina.Late in life Mark Twain lost most of his fortune and wasforced to pay the bills by almost constant tours of thissort. That’s how he died: The stress killed him. Vroman’s

in Pasadena, California…Booksmith in San Francisco…Elliott Bay Books in Seattle.In Portland, Oregon, Powell’s City of Books is the equiva-

lent of playing the Palace.Each room of the city-block-sized building is named for

a different color. Please understand, each of these rooms isthe size of most independent bookstores. The Green Room,for example, is the store’s main entrance. For years Pow-ell’s staged book events in the Purple Room. The drinkingfountain in the adjacent Rose Room is legendary becauselongtime employees swear that the ghost of the store’sfounder, Walter Powell, occasionally appears there, almostalways on Tuesday nights. The Orange Room is where the

store buys used books, and insider sources report that surly,less socially apt staffers are relegated to work there. TheOrange Room is the Alba of Powell’s. For years a canis-ter of ashes moved around the store, bumped from shelf toshelf. These were the cremated remains of a book lover who

wanted to spend eternity at this, his favorite place. In thestreet entrance to the Orange Room is a column sculptedto look like a stack of books, and it’s sealed inside this stonecolumn that those ashes found their final resting place.

The Pearl Room is on the th ird floor, where the RareBook Room occupies one corner and the rest is given over toart, architecture, film, and erotica books. My insider sourcesswear the Pearl Room is the store’s cruisey sexual pickup c

h r i s t i a n b

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C H U C K P A L A H N I U K is the

author of Fight Club (Norton,

1996), as well as twelve

other novels and two books

of nonfiction, all of t hem

national best-sellers. He lives

in the Pacific Northwest.

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the practical writer M A K I N G D A V I D S E D A R I S LA U GH

100N O V D E C 2 0 1 2

ing consisted of people sliding theiropen books past her while she leanedover them and wrote her name at arm’slength. The game changer was the tour

when she hurt her leg boarding herflight and had to be taken to the emer-

gency room upon arrival. Withthe help of painkil lers she didthe Powell’s event that night,transformed. She touched thebooks. She hugged her fans.Giddy, she laughed and juggledher two tiny Yorkies, to every-one’s delight.

At Powell’s you see the lit-

erary gods at their not-best.Exhausted from weeks ofsleeping in a different hotelbed every night. Starved.

Lonely for family. Hungover. Herethey are. W hen Bret Easton Elliscame to promote his story collection,The Informers (Knopf, 1994), his novel

American Psycho (Vintage, 1991) wasstill freshly stuck in everyone’s craw.So many political ly outraged people

Fight Club, hers, Little Miss Strange (Al-gonquin Books, 1997)—were published

within a few months of each other. She was succeeded by Steve Fidel, who co-ordinated author appearances until he

joined the Peace Corps and went to

work in Budapest. Both worked withhundreds of authors.

Through my fr iends at Powell’s Ilearned that Amy Tan doesn’t like totouch people, or books. It’s for somereason having to do with germs or

vi ruses , and most of her autograph-

spot. Otherwise, it’s a gallery, a won-derfully big, empty space where authorspresent their work almost every night.

The trouble is: Nobody teaches youhow to do a book event. A publishermight send you on a tour to promotea book, but won’ tcoach you about whatto actually do whilestanding i n front ofreal, live readers. It’stheater, but—usually,for the audience—inconceivably boring.

Go look for yourself.

Check out a few nightsat Powell’s. It’s one train wreck af ter anot her.But they’re wonderfultrain wrecks. In the interest of full dis-closure, I studied writing with JoannaRose, the person who for many yearsorganized author events and publicityat Powell’s. She and I were students in

Tom Spanbauer’s weekly workshop,and our respective debut novels—mine,

Nobody teaches you how to do a book event.

A publisher might send you on a tour to promote

a book, but won’t coach you about what to actually

do while standing in front of real, live readers.

It’s theater, but—usually, for the audience— inconceivably boring.

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P O E T S & W R I T E R S 101

Q&A session, she was almost in frus-trated tears.

What no one knew was that a largerdrama was taking place. When anyoneloses a child at Powell’s the store goesinto lockdown. The Catcher in the Rye

is the coded cue for staf f members to

block all exterior doors and prevent thelost or kidnapped kid from leaving thebuilding. There are other book titles,representing other crisis situations, butreally, you should read Birds of Paradise.It’s a wonderful book.

Mor e imp or tant than seeing aseamless, perfect show, the magicof Powell’s is that you see these au-thors in the flesh. Tired or grumpy—especially tired and grumpy or loadedon painki llers—they’re liv ing proofthat actual human beings write

telephoned the store, threatening toplant bombs, to throw pies, to splashred paint on him, that Ellis spent theevening in a scrum of bodyguards.

When Jonathan Franzen appeared topromote The Corrections (Farrar, Strausand Giroux, 2001), he told

what seemed like wry,funny stories about thelocal publicist who was es-corting him around town.Unknown to him, every-one in Portland adoresthis woman, Hallie. Todate, the Portland literati

still spit on the ground when his name is men-tioned. Hell hath no furylike an audience of Port-land book snobs.

Few stores manage au-thor events as well as doesPowell’s. There are seatsfor everyone. The mi-crophone works. There’sno competition from anyloud espresso machine,and they even cease over-

head announcements. T h e e x c e p t i o n w a s when Diana Abu-Jaberlaunched her lovely novel Birds of Paradise (Norton,2011). Her reading there

was inspired. Spellbind-ing. Listeners were en-thralled as Diana builtdramatic tension. Noth-ing existed outside of thesound of her voice until—

“Attention, Powell’s employees…”

the PA speakers blared, “Does anyonehave a copy of The Catcher in the Rye?” The na rrative spel l was broken .

There were a few nervous laughs. Still,Diana forged on. Reading clearly, en-chantingly, she built to a new climax,and just at the cusp of her payoff—

“Attention, all Powell’s employees…Does anyone have a copy of The Catcherin the Rye?”

Twice more she pushed on past theinterruption, and twice more the an-nouncement drowned her out. By the

books. It’s a kind of reverse miracleto see that th is profound story camefrom this profane source. Authors,even brilliant ones, get flustered, actbadly, but at Powell’s you can shaketheir hands. Yes, the same hands that

wrote The Joy Luck Club and Infinite Jest . It’s amazing.

T H I S b r i n g sus to DavidSedaris’s ap-pearance in

Portland. David is the onlyperson who’s ever given me

good advice on what to doat a public reading. Gloriousadvice.

In the interest of fullerdisclosure, David gave methis advice in Barcelona,

where he and I were spend-ing a week. We were there

with Jonathan Lethem, Mi-chael Chabon, and Heidi

Ju lavit s, doing a week ofpublic readings and mediainterviews at something

called “The Institute ofNorth American Culture.”Rather a deep-pockets proj-ect that prompted Michaelto the conclusion that t heCI A was funding the wholeshebang and our real agenda

was to promote goodwill for America, not an unlikely ideaafter September 11, 2001.

Anyway, it was in Barcelonathat David and I went shop-

ping one afternoon.

At an open-air flea market, I was pe-rusing a box filled with antique chande-lier crystals, silently debating whetheror not to spend two hundred euros ona deck of swastika-emblazoned playingcards issued by the Nazis—were they aneternal totem of everlasting evil, or justin poor taste?—when apropos of noth-ing, David said, “I can’t believe you’rereally gay.”

In response, I pointed out the factthat I was wearing pleated pants and apink silk shirt. I was in Barcelona with

David Sedaris

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worked. The setup, the pacing, the pay-off. David Sedaris is a brilliant story-teller. But this was Portland, Oregon,the capital of Earnest EmpatheticSincerity. At the punch line, no onelaughed. Hundreds of faces just stared,their eyes brimming with tears. Afew sniffed loudly. Okay, one personlaughed. I laughed. Give me a break—it was a hideously funny story, but thebeta test had failed. Needless to say itdid not go into his next book. And at theinsensitive braying those hundreds of

weeping heads swiveled to glare at me.David had laughed at my joke in Bar-

celona. I’d laughed at his in Portland. And now all those readers who lovedhim had someone safe they could hate.

And, no, I didn’t buy the Nazi pokerdeck.

This essay is taken from My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Placesto Browse, Read, and Shop, edited by

Ronald Rice, publi shed in November byBlack Dog & Leventhal Publishers.

shop, cramming sandwiches and po-tato chips into their mouths, they were

watching an autopsy in the next roomthrough a large window. The subject

was a dead boy, eight or nine years old. At the book event David worked hisaudience, describing the dead child’sblonde hair and unmarked body. Theboy looked perfect, as if he were justasleep. He’d fallen on his bicycle, andnow he was dead. Among the readerspresent, you could’ve heard a pin dropas David described in slow-motiondetail how the attending physician cutacross the child’s forehead and peeled

aside that lovely face the way you’d peelan orange. Among the lu nchroom observers ,

someone pointed out the stripped skulland the exposed, magenta-coloredmusculature. His mouth still full ofhalf-chewed tuna sandwich, this mansaid, “See that, there? That color ofred? That’s the color I want to paintour rec room.”

Everything about the story should’ve

my partner of many years—as was he. And I was haggl ing over eighteenth-century chandelier crystals to hang onmy Christmas tree. I said, “The onlything that could make me more gayat this moment would be a cock in mymouth.” And David laughed. And not

just a polite laugh, he brayed.I still marvel at that moment: I made

David Sedaris laugh! Beyond that, while we shopped, he

told me to never read from the currentbook while on tour. Always read fromthe next one. Doing so builds readerawareness of your upcoming work. It

rewards the audience members by giv-ing them something exclusive. And itbeta-tests the new material to see if it’sactually as funny as you imagined.

As if to illustrate the last point, thenext time I saw David was in Portland.He was telling an anecdote at a publicreading. In front of hundreds of rapt lis-teners he described sitting in the lunch-room of a medical examiner’s office, ata table of people eating food. Talking

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