Updates from <checks notes> San Diego
or at least somewhere on the west coast, I think
Okay, the big big big news first.
This is not something that has ever happened to me. Despite the number of times I’ve been introduced onstage as a “New York Times Bestselling Author”—despite being billed that way in the credit for a blurb on the cover of someone else’s book—I had never come close to hitting the Times list before. The Great Believers has steadily sold well and found an incredible audience, but to make the list, you need a ton of sales all in one week.
Which is all to say: THANK YOU. Assuming you are someone who had something to do with this, and that includes just thinking general good vibes in my direction.
It’s also lucky number 13 on the “Combined Print and E-Book Fiction” list, which is a miracle considering Colleen Hoover has been sitting all over that list for months like Horton on the egg.
I have no idea if it’ll hang around the list, but once is enough to use it in my bio for the rest of my life.
Sometimes You’re the Windshield…
…sometimes you’re the Valentines Day balloons on the ceiling of an Italian restaurant on March 3rd.
Everybody sing along!
The Best Question I’ve Been Asked So Far:
Actually I’ve been asked many brilliant questions, but this is an all-purpose one I’m going to steal myself: This lovely woman in Livermore, CA asked me to talk about the book’s first sentence and last sentence.
I love this in part because as a kid, I was always sure that if I put the first and last words of a book together, they’d make some secret message. It’s possible that this worked out for me once, which led me to keep hoping.
Do Not Flush Teddy Bears Down the Airplane Toilet:
Just don’t do it.
You Need To See These Shoes:
This was right after my event in Chicago, with the owners of Exile in Bookville (visit them on Michigan Ave.!) and the author Lindsay Hunter, and the author Lindsay Hunter’s AMAZING SHOES.
The Slo-Mo Reunion:
One of the weirdest parts of a book tour is that you’re reconnecting with people from all different periods of your life. So far this tour I’ve seen one high school friend, two college friends, several current and recent students I’d only ever seen on Zoom, a couple of real-life students I hadn’t seen in months or years, two of my high school teachers…
Frankly, I see no change between this photo of me and my friend Greg and the one he just sent me of us in a bar in 1999:
Quick story: Greg and I dated in college, and our first solo date was to see the movie Kids. If you have never seen the movie Kids, I’ll just say that it is perhaps the worst first date movie of all time. It’s a miracle we ever spoke again.
Someone Made Me These Cookies!!!
Seriously. For real. By hand. She’s on Instagram at @kellydull.
A Parting Gift:
I’m just gonna leave you with this art piece I found in San Francisco. I’m pretty sure it’s and endowed chair.
I guess we can now use "subscribes to NYT bestselling author Rebecca Makkai's substack and she might recognize our name if we showed up at a signing" as a blurb. Woo-hoo!
I wrote a poem once using only famous first lines of literature. Here are two stanzas:
Once upon a time two or three weeks ago,
I saw the best minds of my generation
borne back ceaselessly into the past.
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
It was the best of times
the worst of times.
I was born with a gift of laughter
and a sense that the world was mad.
And for a long time,
I went to bed early.
Arretez, stop. So well deserved. "Basque," in it, won't you?