I Don't Hate It | Independent Bookstore Day
Hey there. Happy Independent Bookstore Day!
The news of Chadwick Boseman’s death, at 43, didn’t reach me until this morning, when I saw it on Twitter. The kid (no longer a kid, don’t get me started) for whom I nannied while I lived in Austin became a big baseball fan around the age of seven or eight and selected Jackie Robinson for a school biography project. When 42 came out years later, I was teaching Sports, Media & Society at UVA and I took my class to see the movie and then called that boy who had so admired number 42 and we talked about it. I have been a fan of Boseman’s ever since. His passing took my breath away.
It wasn’t long after I read that tweet that I learned of the death of author Randall Kenan, a true literary light. Randall wrote a story for the Spring 2013 Business of Literature issue of VQR—“When We All Get to Heaven”—and I met him some years later at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He was lovely, and funny. I won’t claim to have known him, only to have met him and to have worked at the magazine when we published that story, possibly to have worked on it a bit, in copy edit. But goodness the hits just keep on coming, don’t they. Here is the art that accompanied that story. I’ve found it meditative today.
My book club is reading Ann Petry’s The Street for September. We choose books six months in advance, through a process of nominations followed by one or two rounds of voting, and it’s made the longlist at least twice that I can recall. I’m excited to finally have an opportunity to discuss it with my smart friends this coming week. I have this edition, from the late nineties, but I’m really hoping someone else has this gorgeous newer reissue, with an introduction by Tayari Jones.
My friend Sharon Harrigan’s debut novel, Half, is out now, and Pages Bookshop is hosting a virtual event for it in a couple of weeks. The info is here. Pages is an independent bookstore in Detroit, where the novel is set. You can buy a copy of the book at the link, where you can also register for the event. Half has received a lot of praise—all more than deserved—and I really look forward to seeing Sharon discuss it on Sept. 15. I hope you’ll “be” there too.
In case you missed my Virginia Festival of the Book Shelf Life event with De’Shawn Charles Winslow and want to watch, you can find the video here (no login required). I had such a great time talking to De’Shawn about his novel, In West Mills—I learned that the main character is based on someone De’Shawn knew when he was young, for instance, and we had a straightforward conversation about writing fiction about sex and desire that I think is uncommon in a lot of book events that aren’t specifically about literature on sex, etc. But the best part of the hour for me—this should not surprise you—was when De’Shawn recommended authors and books. I am especially excited to read Alice Mattison’s collection of linked stories, In Case We’re Separated. It’s one of my Independent Bookstore Day purchases.
Keep on keepin’ on. Wear a mask. Wash your hands.