There wasn’t a dry eye in my head. On Wednesday night I launched my novel A Little Bit Ruined, and before I read told the gathering of people I loved deeply, without benefit of alcohol, that I was calling it quits.
My ten-month-old granddaughter was there, and I held her before the audience like Kunta Kinte before the moon and recited the book’s dedication. “For Summer Amalia Roberson, the love of my life, with apologies for calling you Katrina Fema while you were in utero.” I didn’t go into my usual apology for her having that silly first name, which I’d lobbied against with literary offerings like Flannery most of the time she was gestating. I just stood up there and announced that she was good enough reason to quit writing. She would fill my days.Though I added, even in the deeply kind presence of Susan Larson, my friend and everyone’s best book editor, that I couldn’t stand the having-written part of writing.
I couldn’t stand what was, in effect, that part of being a writer. Of counting the house. Of being reviewed and feted, in some measure or other. The party was pretty wonderful, with a gathering of some of the greatest people who still live in New Orleans, writers and artists and every other kind of fine mind. Much better than a funeral. Altogether a group of great laughers who I think listened to me while Summer mugged in the front row.
The next day Julie Smith and I drove three hours up—and three hours back—to Jackson, Mississippi, to do a signing with Ace Atkins at Lemuria Bookstore for our anthology, New Orleans Noir. Ace is a hot commodity in Mississippi, and he’d done a noonTV show in Jackson. We drew six people. It was a perfect final lesson in book marketing. A perfect capstone to a writing career.
Why, you'll ask, do I call myself the fat-in-her-mind lady? I answer this only because I don't want any "you're so thin!" comments. I was a fat, miserable kid. Once fat, always fat. It made for a rotten childhood--with a lot of help from external circumstances--so I had the requisite baggage to grow up to write. And now I have those requisite insecurities that eventually take their toll of having to walk out of the marketplace. The fat girl takes her leave. Except to tell the truth.
