1. Today we finally put up the Scalamandre wallpaper that I bought a year ago on Ebay. It is perfect. I’ve loved it since I was in high school and would admire it on the walls at Gino’s, an Italian restaurant that was across the street from Bloomingdale’s. Wes Anderson also used to admire it there, and he used it in the Royal Tenenbaums, and now Kate Spade has it in some of her dressing rooms, which is like so many things I love all at once, I can hardly stand it. Except that I can stand it, and I will now stand it every single day, happily.

2. Tonight I went to see Maira Kalman and Daniel Handler at WORD. They read from their new book and riffed affectionately off one another, and were completely adorable. When I said hello to Maira, and reminded her that we’d previously met at BookCourt, she said, oh yes, and then did a hand gesture that clearly meant *hair pouf*, and I died of happiness and satisfaction.

love

Emma

I am thrilled to announce that Riverhead Books is going to rerelease Other People We Married in February. This is exciting for many reasons, chief among them being a much wider distribution. Though I live in a city with a number of wonderful independent bookstores, many of which I frequent regularly, I know that’s not true for everyone. Now people will be able to buy the book anywhere, easily, even at Barnes and Noble, and on Amazon.

One of the other joys of having the book rereleased is the opportunity to work with a Real Live Copyeditor, which means that I got a list of every proper noun in the entire book. It struck me that this list was like a little Rorschach test of my personality. To wit:

Joan of Arc
John Keats
John Travolta
Joshua Tree
Katharine Hepburn
Leaves of Grass
Leonard Cohen
L.L.Bean
Marlene Dietrich
Marmaduke
Marshmallow Fluff

That tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the collection, I think. Please pre-order the book wherever you would normally do so. I’ve set up exactly ONE event for the rerelease, and it’s a doozy. Details to follow…

Yours, breathless with gratitude and excitement and, fine, some potato chips,

Emma

I am a horrible ham, and have a nearly impossible time keeping a straight face while someone is taking my photograph. This is fine most of the time, but it just doesn’t do for an author photo. One needs to look attractive, smart, inviting and serious all at once. Talk about a tall order. My friend Allison took my first author photo, which I am very fond of, but I knew I wanted a new one for the novel.

My friend Zack Zook came over a couple of months ago to take some shots. Zack is the Events Manager at BookCourt, and the editor of Cousin Corinne’s Reminder, in addition to being a fabulous photographer. I’m totally, totally thrilled with the author photo I chose from our shoot, but I won’t share that until much closer to the novel’s publication, which will be fall 2012. Until then, though, here are some outtakes, which prove what a terrible subject I am.

I promise the photo I chose is less goofy than these. It’s Serious, even. You’ll see.

love
Emma

At this week’s second book club visit, the very lively and smart group went straight for my heart.

This is an ‘after’ photo of the cheese plate. You should have seen it before.

This is a very dark photo of about half the empty bottles of wine.

Thank you hugely to Amanda and Luca and their amazing posse. I had such a wonderful time that I might start to lurk outside your doors with wine and cheese, hoping to be invited back.

Yours,
Emma

At this week’s bookclub, my hosts made OPWM-themed food. Love it!

You’re looking at a casserole (Fly-Over State) and a Vietnamese salad (Some People Must Really Fall in Love). A for effort!

There were also Girl Scout cookies (better than fiction).

Pablo the cat was a very active part of the discussion.

Then I took a taxi home. 9 hours at the bookstore, an hour on the train, two hours at the bookclub. Goodnight.

Love
Emma

Last night, I had the super, delicious pleasure of reading at the Happy Ending reading series at Joe’s Pub. There was a dressing room! And I had a free glass of wine! Hoo boy am I easy to please.

Daniel Knox sang some lovely songs.

Then Andrew Autschul read from his novel. His ‘risk’ for the night was playing a CD from his high school band, DWI. Nice one.

Then I read a story about summer camp. My risk was reading a series of letters I wrote to my parents from summer camp in 1991, when I was 11. Spoiler: I wanted them to tape 90210, send me packages, and I didn’t get the part I wanted in the Wizard of Oz.

Jon-Jon Goulian read (for the very first time!) from his memoir. My first reading had fewer scenes with penises, that’s for sure. Brave boy!

No stage bathroom is complete without a photo of Mandy Moore: agree or disagree?

En route to Oberlin as we speak. Pics of tater tots to follow!

Love
Emma

Over at The Paris Review Daily, it’s James Salter month. Lots of wonderful people are writing about Salter, and why shouldn’t they? The man writes the kind of sentences they make my brain want to explode. They’ve got flavor crystals, you know what I mean? And today they posted an essay by my friend Alexander Chee, who wrote about his time on porno shoots.

This got me thinking.

I am a total prude.

And it’s hard to be a prude.  I don’t mean that it’s hard for me in my daily life (crossing the street), or in my personal life (sleeping with my husband), but when writing fiction, I have Major Prude Anxiety. People love to read about sex! I know this to be true. And yet I find it challenging to write all the way through a scene in which two people (or one person) are naked and thinking sexy thoughts without backing out the way I came, gently closing the door behind me. I can get it started, even take some clothes off and describe some nice foreplay, and then I’m out. Think of it this way: on one end of the spectrum, you have James Salter, and on the other end, five miles down the road, you have me.

One of my friends, the only female butcher at New York City’s best butcher shop, greeted me thusly after reading my book of short stories: “You said ‘boobs’!” This is a woman who cuts up animals for a living, who forms phallic sausage after phallic sausage, who has blood on her hands all day long. “I didn’t know you knew the word ‘boobs,’” she seemed to be saying, as though addressing a Mennonite nun. If fiction is one of the ways that we can experience other lives, then surely having a rompingly-good sex scene should be a part of that. I felt that I had let both her and her delicious sausages down.

I reread James Salter’s “A Sport and a Pasttime” the same way I reread Norma Klein books as a pre-teen: trying to pace myself and not hurry towards the sexy bits. The book isn’t just sexy, it’s famously sexy, like “A Last Tango in Paris,” or “Jules et Jim,” and rightly so. The book tingles with sensuality, and I’ve starred passages in the margins, underlined entire paragraphs. Of course, Salter writes about the entire world with a lush tongue, not only the breath-taking sexual encounters. He writes about leaves and sidewalks and cafes and silence and somehow all of it begins to hum like a tuning fork. But it is the sex that people always talk about, the sex that makes booksellers raise an eyebrow when they recommend it.

Another friend of mine, a male writer who recently published a story about a girl having sex with a lobster, also remarked on my book’s lack of sex. “You keep closing the door!” He admonished me. Which I suppose is true. Can I be the only writer alive who occasionally wants to give my characters some privacy? I don’t show them going to the bathroom, either, unless it’s to sit on the toilet and cry a little bit. But James Salter never closes the door, not even when one of the characters gets her period or has bad breath. If we are inside the relationship, Salter implies by including these scenes, then by all means, let’s be inside it. The novel is brave and reckless, like people in love for the first time, noticing everything around them through the lens of their newly discovered parts. No one ever cares about the other’s body odor, or imperfections.

What strikes me the most about Salter’s sex scenes is the bravery, the nakedness not only of the character’s bodies but of their actions. This goes here, that goes there. He is direct and unsqueamish. Take the word ‘prick,’ for example: Salter says it and it’s just the right word, both playful and aggressive at once. I wonder if James Salter’s friends go to him for sexual advice, or whether they’re too cowed by his reputation to mention their own meager efforts. Maybe this is what my lesson should be: write the kind of the book that will make a lover have a new idea, that will make a friend blush.  It could start gradually, with a nipple pressing against the fabric of a shirt instead of an angular shoulderblade, or a bare bottom revealed underneath a short skirt. I’m working on it, James, I’m working on it.

Yours,
Emma

I got a fan letter at the store today. And then Zack wrote a fan letter about my fan. A proper love-fest.

Love,
Emma

I’m writing you from my plush digs on the NJ Transit train home from The Raconteur, in lovely Metuchen, New Jersey. The bookstore is warm and wonderful, with a thousand corners to get lost in. Allow me to show you some pictures, won’t you?

They had excellent signage.

Alex and his wife run the place, and were fabulous hosts.

The Raconteur has a Western shelf.

Jess Row, a giant metal cow head, me.

This young man was a great fan of Big Pete, and had me sign several books on his behalf. Why not, really.

Then we headed back to the train station. It really does feel good to get out of the city, even if just for a few hours.

We celebrated with Peppermint Patties.

And then I thought about freezing my eggs.

Thank you, Raconteur! Was a pleasure.

Yours,
Emma

I forgot to mention yesterday that the flowers my husband brought home happened to match my book jacket.

Speaking of the book jacket, this new review calls the design “fucking gorgeous,” and I couldn’t agree more.

And from the Department of Good News, I am thrilled to report that my essay about Joey McIntyre (“Joey Joe, Messenger of the Lord”) will appear in Tin House #49, available in September. Tin House has always been one my favorite magazines, and I am absolutely over the moon.

love
Emma