A Boston Heads-Up
Insider Info, Okay? Secret!
Yeah, it’s a crap shoot. But the numbers look light at Porter Square Books, tomorrow at noon.
If you show up with a stack of backlist titles and posters and whatnot, I’ll be able to accommodate everything. Folks have loved the comic panels to be glued into FC2 & FC3. Bring everything just so I’ll have a job to do all day.
You don’t want to see me bored and shoot’n smack in the afternoon, do you?
Come tell me your stories for a change. Please!
Porter Square books is at 50 Liberty Drive, Suite 500, Boston 02210
Here is my experience at yesterday's signing in NYC...
The event was scheduled for noon-8pm. I had things to do and arrived at 2:15 and was dismayed to see the line started in the middle of 12th St and wrapped around Broadway. Soon a (very nice) line monitor came around and said, "You see the corner of 12th way down there? It's gonna be about a 2 hour wait just to get inside when you get to there." So the book I'd just started came out of my bag and I leaned on the fortunate scaffolding and settled in. Checked the time later... in a half hour the line had progressed about 6 feet. Oy.
I read, I listened to some podcasts, read some more...
Two and a half hours later I'd made it to the corner! Right about then everyone seemed to be in the same mood: angry. Why weren't there timed entrances? Why did we have to keep standing in the sun (no scaffolding on the 12th St side)? Should we leave and come back?
But we persisted. And started talking to each other. About our favorite Chuck books, other authors we liked, and browsed the carts of bargain books we were now against. Joked about finding the most incongruous one for Chuck to sign... but we were told we could only have two things signed (the new book being one). We started making up answers for when people would ask what we were in line for... sorry to those tourists I told that the line was for the free STD clinic.
Then the violent thunderstorm came as we huddled under the awnings... but we weren't giving up. Around hour five the storm passed and we eventually got inside where we were given our copies of the new book.
Really should have heeded the advice sent to bring water and food, as I hadn't had a thing in about 7 hours now so I was getting really punchy. Interesting to see what others had brought to be signed... a LOT of "Fight Club"s in many differing pressings, a hamster in a cage (don't know exactly why she had that, but... ), and one innocent-looking woman with a copy of "Snuff" (I held my oft-read copy of "Adjustment Day").
Two showing of "Oppenheimer" after I first got in line, it was at last my turn. I'm pathetic at these meet-and-greets with people whose work I respect so I rambled a bit and told him that in my time on line I had gone through all of the Kubler-Ross stages of grief:
Denial (I'm sure this will only be 90 minutes at most)
Anger (WHY isn't this organized?)
Bargaining (Could I go in front of you?)
Depression (Chuck is going to leave before we get there, isn't he?)
Acceptance (We're going to be inside in just 30 minutes!)
Long story short (too late): it was worth the wait. I got to awkwardly tell him I loved his work, he listened to me, he posed for pics with fun props (no spoilers) and many thanks to the terrific staff photog at The Strand who didn't just wait for us to pose and take one pic (you give them your phone), but snapped away while we were talking.
All in all? Worth every hour. And when I got home exhausted, dehydrated, and starved and finally looked at what he'd written in my book I had to laugh:
"For Roy (...) who has arrived at Acceptance"
Those in Boston are a lucky lot, they are.