High Tide in Tucson_ Essays From Now or Never - Barbara Kingsolver [66]
And strangely, for the first time ever, I seize up with airplane phobia. It’s not pilot error I dread, but the attendant who’s reaching across me to pour coffee. One air pocket, and it could be all over for my silk jacket. I’d have to go home.
Four days out, and I’m hard pressed to remember where I’ve been. My friends think I’m seeing the U.S.A., but this isn’t strictly the case. I’m seeing the inside of bookstores, TV studios, radio stations, newspaper offices, and if I can still see straight at the end of the day, hotel rooms. My spiritual life revolves around the overnight laundry service. I’ve made these geographic discoveries: all TV studios look exactly alike; all bookstore bathrooms look alike; all NPR stations are in the basement.
Not that I’m complaining. A literary novelist whose publisher springs for national promotion has been visited by the angels. For this amazing stroke of luck I vow to feel grateful, and even though my schedule allows no time for exploring, for adventure’s sake I’ll at least try to spot one major landmark wherever I go. Seattle has Mount Rainier—I looked down on it from the plane. San Francisco, owing to its recent earthquake, has pile drivers going everywhere, a city’s dull heartbeat pounding through the subterranean walls of radio stations.
San Diego has fog; on the morning I have to fly from there to L.A. for a live TV show, the airport seems to be closed. I’m getting desperate. If I don’t turn up on the set, they may need to interview a potted plant. Suddenly a buzz runs through the airport: something is going to L.A. I rush to the counter and miraculously get my ticket changed, my body booked on that plane.
On board, I see this is no miracle, it’s only the eight most foolhardy people in San Diego climbing into a prop plane so tiny I’m not allowed to carry my purse on, but must stow it in the hold. I ask the uniformed man, “Will we get breakfast?”
He snorts. “Lady, this flight has a crew of one. You want me to fly the plane, or serve you breakfast?”
We ricochet up through the fog. My fellow travelers blanch, but I relax. Nobody’s spilling coffee on me.
At the end of my day in L.A., one of my publisher’s sales representatives offers to buy me a drink. I accept, though I am so tired I suspect I might be one drink away from delirium. But sales reps are founts of knowledge: they know who’s who, how your book is selling, and everything about what’s coming out next season. I ask him about an author I’ve been hearing about—will she be touring?
He avoids my question. “Things happen sometimes,” he says. “Not everybody is cut out for the book tour.”
“Like what kind of things?”
“Showing up drunk for signings. Punching out a reporter. Going AWOL from the tour, turning up on a shopping spree in Santa Fe. You don’t want to know. It’s not pretty out there.”
I press him, asking again about the famous author in question—does he mean her?
“No,” he says. “But we decided she’s untourable.”
Untourable?
Prior to this tour, I went to New York several times to meet editors and publicists over friendly lunches. Were they actually checking to see that my socks matched? These overtures of author-publisher friendship were actually screen tests? I take a deep breath. How ridiculous; I’m thinking like a paranoid schizophrenic.
“What exactly does untourable mean?” I ask.
The sales rep stares into his Jack Daniel’s and replies, “Insane.”
Promoting novels in a sound-bite culture is like selling elephants from a gumball machine. Cramped. Put in your nickel and stand back. Interviewers keep asking, “What is your book about?” They mean well. They are kindly giving me a chance to pitch my product. But you should sooner say to a hypochondriac “How are you?” than ask an author this question. Shall I grab you by the lapels and really tell you? Have you got all day? No. What they need is a seven-word answer, and the only accurate one I can think of is: “It’s about three hundred pages long—read it!!” But that