Front of Book

"These publication readings are, in my own experience, occasions for a mini-nervous breakdowns. They are supposed to be a celebration of the book’s publication, but for the writer, especially once you are past your first one when you and the book are pure potential and all your friends are there, they are going away parties, a kind of a wake; I wore all white at the first reading at Barnes and Noble for my most recent book. It was the end of summer; I hadn’t thought about it too much. But in hindsight it corresponded to my feeling that the reading was a kind of Buddhist mourning ritual in which the body is burned so the soul can roam free."

Thomas Beller