June's Passing

My mother, June Welch Barry, passed away Saturday morning. My brother, my husband, and I were all at her bedside. My mother had the misfortune of being diagnosed with severe Rheumatoid Arthritis at the early age of 45. She courageously and uncomplainingly battled the disease for an astonishing 37 years. Eventually, RA took from her the use of her hands, feet, arms, and legs, until she could no longer walk, dress, feed or care for herself. Her specialist deemed it one of the worst cases of RA that they had ever seen. As her daughter, I saw both her distress and her dignity. I was lucky enough to see her almost every day for the last three years of her life and, before that, to act as a part-time caregiver. These last weeks, many of our family held vigil with my mother. Her friends came from all over to sit at her bedside to share stories of their time with June and what it meant to them.

Time can steal those things which are subject to its laws. But it has no sway over the heart. Hers was strong, heroic, silly, and loving. My sadness is broken by the dreams I have of her now, healthy once more. I see her dancing with my father to some old favorite tune, some Fred and Ginger favorite. She is graceful and happy.

One of June's last wishes was for me to return to the book tour as soon as possible. My mother was an inspiration for The Lace Reader, very much like Eva, very much a lady in the old sense but with a special gift for predicting the future. She didn't read lace, but she could often tell the future. She told me early on that this book would do well, and it has.

Though it is difficult, and I'm not sure how to do it, I am heading out tonight confident that my mother's inspiration will guide me.

My Book Tour Goes Way Out West

For the last month, I've logged over 2,000 miles driving around the New England area to bookstores and libraries for events. I've kept a photo diary of these events, click here if you'd like to see it. However, for the next three weeks, I'll take to the air and head out to the West coast.

Here are the first two stops on the West coast tour:

    9/7 Seattle, WA at the Seattle Public Library (Secret Garden Bookshop) on Sunday at 2PM

    9/8 Bellingham, WA at Village Books on Monday at 7PM

I'll be speaking, signing, and taking questions so please stop by if you can.

After Washington state, I'll be in the San Francisco Bay area and in and around Los Angeles. Then I'm off to Colorado, Arizona, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Click here for my full book tour schedule and all of the details.

I hope to see you soon.

Keeping Me in Stitches

A work in progress. Bobbin lace on a lace maker's pillow. A few days ago, I was in South Hadley, MA at the wonderful Odyssey Bookstore to speak about The Lace Reader and to do a signing. One of the attendees brought in a piece of lace she was making (in the photo, it's attached to her lace maker's pillow.) Having tried and failed to make lace myself, I'm always in awe of anyone who can nimbly toss the stick-like bobbins back and forth and end up with something so beautiful and delicate. Another lace maker in the audience remarked that lace making is not very complex, reducing the process to it's most simple. "You take two threads and you either go over one or go under the other. "

While what she said is absolutely true, my failed attempt tied not only the piece I was working on into knots but my mental state as well. I ended up putting my work (with bobbins still attached) into a hatbox and shoving the whole thing to the back of my closet with all the other treasures I plan to fix or complete.

So I am thrilled when the lace makers come to one of my signings, and even happier when they embrace the book. Lace makers are true artists, and they are all around the country. So if you get a chance to see a demonstration, or even to try lace making yourself, I encourage you do it. Who knows? Like the Whitney women, you might even see a vision in the lace.

Waiting patiently for the world to know me

And there I sat for a long long time, waiting patiently for the world to know me. 

                    Nathaniel Hawthorne

My national book tour began a few days ago at the House of the Seven Gables, in the shadow of the masterful Hawthorne. The Lace Reader is set in Salem, and it has been embraced by the city and by the staff of the House of Seven Gables, in particular by Anita Blackaby, the executive director of the famous domicile. After reading my book, Anita emailed and invited me over for a visit. Not only did they want to help to make my book successful, but they also wanted to create a Lace Reader litera-tour so that many of the places in the book could easily be located by readers visiting Salem. And, upon finding out that my second book will be set on the same street as the Gables, Anita offered me writing space in their beautiful gardens. What a delight! I can't thank her enough.

Cornerstone Books in Salem hosted the event which took place in two parts. The first was my reading, a presentation, Q&A, and a signing. Then later, in the gardens, there was a reception to benefit HAWC, a local group that helps abused women and children, a fitting pairing since my fictional story deals with an island shelter for such victims.

The event was sold out, so Cornerstone hosted another, earlier signing. It was warm and muggy plus I was a little nervous. Ben Bruton, my publicist from William Morrow, kept me cool and calm by telling me stories of his visit to Salem, most particularly about his witnessing of a tourist attraction called Cry Innocent which is mentioned in my novel. In this guerilla theater reenactment (which runs several times a day during the summer months), Bridget Bishop (Salem's first of the accused) is literally dragged through the streets, then tried for witchcraft all over again, giving the tourists a chance to act as the jury and perhaps to change the historical outcome. On this afternoon, a particularly hot one, tourists were hard to come by, so another local actor (who was playing a fully costumed giant slurpee for a shop on the corner) tried to help, grabbing Bridget by the arm. The image that Ben created of the giant slurpee dragging Bridget down the street, while the young actress stayed in perfect period character vehemently protesting her innocence, made me laugh out loud. I realized once again why I love this place. These are my people: from Hawthorne, to HAWC, to the giant Slurpee, - what a great city!

To learn more about The House of Seven Gables, click here.

To learn more about HAWC, click here.

And what the heck is a chop suey sandwich, anyway?

Get two, they're small.

Last Monday, I flew to Washington DC to appear on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show to discuss The Lace Reader. The show is an hour long, and it is live, so I was a bit nervous. I didn't sleep much the night before. Instead, I sat in the dark, making mental lists of all the ways I could mess up. Of course, I knew better. If you're going to make mental lists, make them of all the ways you can be successful, right? But middle of the night list-making often yields darker results, so, eventually, I turned on the light and started to read.

In the morning, when I walked into the studio, all of my apprehension faded. What a great group of people! They are gracious, smart, and funny. They had me laughing within about a minute. Diane is such a good conversationalist that you get better just by being in her presence. The hour flew by. In the second half of the show, we fielded some very interesting questions from listeners.

The only thing we didn't get to was the promised definition of chop suey sandwiches (CSS). So for those of you who were listening and for others who may be curious, here's the dish.  CSS are a popular treat in The Lace Reader and in the real city of Salem. When I moved back to town about a decade ago, they were the best value around (beating even McDonalds at sixty-five cents apiece, though the price has increased since by a dollar). They are sold at two different take-out Chinese places along the midway at Salem Willows Park. John Rafferty (the book's fictional detective) eats at least one of them per day, partly because he really loves them, and partly because he has acquired a sense of New England frugality that would make the locals proud. 

Basically, the sandwich is a scoop (some would say lump) of very traditional chop suey, with soy sauce squirted on top, and sometimes a bit of chicken, all served on a hamburger bun. It's not one of my favorite treats, though my brother swears by it. I swear by the popcorn that is sold two shops away and is (hands-down) the best on the North Shore. But that's a story for another day. So, if you listened to the Diane Rehm show, you now know what a CSS is. If not, and you are interested, click here to listen to the show.

A New Morning Edition

National Public Radio (NPR) ran an interview on last Friday's Morning Edition show. Lynn Neary interviewed me, my husband Gary, my agent Rebecca Oliver, bookseller Hilary Emerson Lay, and my editor Laurie Chittenden. It's a brisk six minute piece that gives some of the behind the scenes details of getting "The Lace Reader" published which was quite an adventure. If you're at all curious about the book publishing business, click here to listen to it. 

Magic, Lace Readers, and Ancient Mariners

Last Saturday night, we hosted a party on The Friendship, a reconstruction of a171-foot three-masted 1797 Salem East Indiaman which is moored at Derby Wharf, in Salem. The most amazing magic trick of the evening was that there was no rain. We felt extremely lucky because the four previous days were what Eva (the original lace reader) would have called "nice weather for ducks." The party was for family, friends, and all those who had championed the book in some way. Some of the local witches actually brought pieces of lace they are learning to read. They spent a good portion of the evening gazing through the lace into people's faces and predicting their futures (this in spite of the fact that I told them that lace reading is something I made up). A group of re-enactors in full 18th century sailor costumes roamed the decks singing sea shanties and spilling grog (mostly Miller Lite). All in all, about a hundred friends and family celebrated a clear and starlit sky, the beautiful evening sea breezes, and the dream that had brought us all together. Tomorrow is July 29th, the day The Lace Reader goes on sale. I feel a bit like Wendy Darling on her last night in the nursery. My national book tour also begins tomorrow and, according to my recent schedule, it will last until mid-November so for the foreseeable future, I'll be writing to you from somewhere on the road.

The press is building, loud enough now for even me to hear a bit of the buzz.

If you haven't seen the book trailer, click here.

Hope versus Fear in USA Today

There are at least three books coming out about Salem this year. The Lace Reader is not about witches, though it is difficult to write anything about contemporary Salem and not include something about the witches who didn't exist at all back in the days of the witch trials but thrive here in great numbers now.

I was recently asked to comment on this for USA Today. Click here to read it.

They asked me why writers would choose to create stories about Salem now. At first I wasn't sure. Unlike the other writers, I live in Salem, so for me it was a natural setting. But it was more than that. In one respect, The Lace Reader  is a cautionary tale. We live now in fearful times. And just as in the Salem of the 1600's, we have to be careful not to let our fears make us recklessly assign blame and create enemies.

But there is another more optimistic side to the story, and that is the quote they chose to use from my interview for the USA Today story.

I talked about the Harry Potter series, and how those books give children, who are relatively powerless, a feeling that they can change the world. I think this ability to connect with our inner strengths is a very important part of my story as well. Magic and everyday miracles are a very hopeful part of our collective consciousness and thus appear frequently in the stories we tell.

I can't speak for the other authors, but, ultimately, my book about Salem is optimistic. More than anything else, The Lace Reader is about healing our deepest wounds, recovering our strength, and moving on. I can't think of anything more hopeful than that.

Bringing Sarcasm and Understatement to a Grateful World

I recently entertained some visitors from Colorado who, after a brief encounter with a local food service establishment, mentioned that they found New Englanders to be sarcastic. "You've got to be kidding," I said disingenuously. New Englanders are a strange mix of propriety, humorous subtext, and open aggression, especially in the face of anything they find pretentious or dishonest. Growing up in New England, I came to discover that you can get along pretty well by resorting to your Emily Post or Miss Manners, but that when people really began to like you, they will mock and tease you mercilessly. If a person is always polite to you, it is never a good sign.

Now that The Lace Reader has been sold in many countries around the world, I am beginning to interact with the various translators and I'm finding that 95% of their questions deal with sarcasm, self-effacing humor, and mocking understatements. Making translatable sense out of tongue-in-cheek remarks is challenging enough but even more so when a culture is devoid of multi-generational taunting. Do cultures like that really exist? If so, what do they do at family gatherings?

Inspiration for The Lace Reader

For quite some time, I have been fascinated by the Hero’s Journey or the monomyth. Most stories that follow this pattern have a decidedly male orientation: a lone individual acts heroically and saves the day. I wondered if there might be an alternate form, a feminine Hero’s Journey. So I began to look at stories that featured female protagonists to see if they offered something different. What I found surprised me. Most of these women were either killed off or were ultimately rescued from their plight by male heros. Unsatisfied, I wondered if I could write a Hero’s Journey for women where the strong but wounded heroine must find a way to save herself. With this in mind, I began to expose myself to archetypal images that resonated with female sensibilities. During this time, I had a dream that I saw something prophetic by looking through a piece of lace. This dream made such an impression on me, it seemed so vivid and real, that I felt that I must at least entertain the idea of using lace as the central image of the book. Soon after that, I found connections to other iconic feminine symbols: water, moon, tides, birth, etc..

As I began to write the novel, my characters’ stories unfolded in ways that surprised me. I began to realize that the heroine’s journey is often a collaborative one. When Towner’s story begins, she is very much alone. Her journey is about healing and learning to trust both herself and others.