High Tide in Tucson_ Essays From Now or Never - Barbara Kingsolver [68]
What of the brilliant wordsmiths who happen to be elderly, disabled, or indisposed to travel because of young children, or not so great looking, or terribly shy? What are we doing here to the future of literature? Where would we be now if our whole literary tradition were built upon approximately the same precepts as the Miss America competition? Who would win: Eudora Welty or Vanna White?
In Boston I do a syndicated talk show, which I’ve been told is very important. I’ll have eight minutes to explain what my book is about, why everyone should read it, and why I have on these cowboy boots my host keeps staring at. While the makeup person flobs me with a horrid powder puff, I imagine seizing control and turning the tables, interrogating the audience: Why do you suppose novelists go on TV? Do you believe in literature? In Tinkerbelle? Clap your hands!
When I’m introduced, my mind rises to the ceiling like an after-death experience and waits up there to see what I’ll say this time. I blurt out: “My book is about cowboys and Indians!” This is news to me. I have no idea what it means. For the rest of the interview, one of us, anyway, is on the edge of her seat.
In Atlanta, a talk-show host leans forward just before the cameras roll and confides to me that he’s exhausted. “I’ve had to do two of these shows today, back to back.”
“Two shows!” I shout, startling even myself. I left my tact in San Francisco. “Try six shows back to back, plus a couple of readings and book signings and an airplane flight, every single day for three weeks!”
“Oh, but I have the hard part,” he tells me sincerely. “I have to sound intelligent.”
Apologies to those back home who think I’m lucky, but I’ve stopped trying to pretend I’m having an adventure. Adventure is stepping through brand-new doors with your mouth shut and your eyes wide open. This is adventure’s opposite: traipsing through a hall of mirrors, listening to myself talk. And in truth it’s also painfully lonely. I’m surrounded continually by people, good and kind ones, whose appreciation never ceases to astonish me. But I have no control over where, what, and with whom I would like to be. I deeply miss my friends, relaxed conversation, being in a house, making myself a sandwich, sitting still with my own thoughts, tucking my child into bed—the things that add up to what matters in my life. I am moving from city to city in a strange glass bubble, the psychic equivalent of that aquarium car that’s used for displaying the Pope. Wherever I am, I am there for now, and then I will disappear.
In all these days I’ve smiled at thousands of people, signed their books, and thanked them for their support. Among all those kind strangers, exactly four of them looked me in the eye and said, “You must miss your daughter,” or “How long since you’ve been home?” Each time, tears sprang to my eyes in spite of myself. I am lost somewhere in this crowd. I’m ready to click my heels now and go home.
New York, New York: this has got to be the zenith of my tour. My very publisher himself, along with my agent and the head of publicity, rode with me in the taxi to my reading in Manhattan, and hinted that the three of them would be taking me out afterward for a triumphal celebration. No word on our destination, but sure enough, as we step out of the bookstore just before midnight, we are whisked off in a limo, headed uptown. I feel cheered. How can I complain of a boot-camp schedule when I get treated like royalty in the end?
We pull up to Rockefeller Center. I gawk at the fabulous Deco facade. In the elevator my ears pop on the twentieth floor and again on the fortieth floor as we glide to the top. We are headed for the pinnacle of glamour, the Rainbow Room.
As our excited little party crosses the marble floor, the maître d’ approaches us with a polite body block, looks down the full length of his nose,