Report #3 from the FIRST FICTION TOUR
from Lisa Selin Davis, y'all:
Wednesday, October 19
Here’s a funny thing I’m learning: a lot of American cities are beautiful. Maybe the northeast has been ravaged more than these middle lands, and maybe urban renewal hasn’t scarred them up as much. Of course, St. Louis was home to the infamous Pruitt-Igoe public housing project, such a den of sin that it had to be razed. But most of what my sister-in-law’s parents show me of the city is breathtaking.
How could there be so many Missourian millionaires?
It’s the deciding game of the pennant playoffs tonight, or whatever you call them, -- the Cardinals are playing the someone-or-others for some big prize -- and not one person shows up. Not one. We eat pretzel sticks and assorted other deep-fried carbohydrates in the vast dining room, and try not to want to quit writing and become accountants.
We try to come up with theories. The whole point of touring together is that no unknown can garner a crowd of listeners -- it’s just not newsworthy that someone you’ve never heard of is going to read from his book, which you also haven’t heard of. But when a group does it, precisely to address the difficult prospect of garnering publicity, well, then, in theory, it’s news.
Other explanations include the location -- downtown is deserted at night, except for tonight, what with both the baseball and hockey games, and the last seven non-sports fans avoiding downtown at all costs due to the traffic. Most of these bookstores’ loyal followers are used to seeing readings right there at the store. Apparently, they are not loyal enough to follow them to strange parts of the city, caked with traffic.
Some commiserators blame it on the Midwest. When you get out to Oregon, they say, it’ll be different.
--LISA SELIN DAVIS