Holding the Taj Mahal of books

India is a country of the most extreme contrasts, full of exquisite treasure and garbage, magnificent, appalling. Agra is typical - an unspeakably filthy town where in the parking lot men battle over tourists, shouting and shoving. From the parking lot you go through extensive security and more aggressive touts pushing postcards and souvenirs. And then you stand weeping in front of the most beautiful building on earth, the mystical Taj Mahal, graceful, serene, lovelier than any photograph. Perfect. And then you go out again through the touts, the skinny dogs and cows, the garbage and mud.

I kept a diary throughout the trip of course, and am working at transcribing it to see if there's a story. I mean, of course there's a story, but is there one to publish? The short answer is yes.

The day after I returned, woozy with jet lag, the doorbell rang; it was a FedEx man with a box. "It's heavy," he said. "It's books." "I know," I said, heart pounding. I slit open the box and there they were, my author's copies of the most gorgeous book in the world, the Taj Mahal of books. Syracuse has done a wonderful job - the book is as well produced as I could ever have imagined. The cover, font, chapter headings, spacing - all ideal. It has the right heft, solid but not daunting. I wonder if the world will agree. The next day I sat down and read the thing, and at the end was able to say that I found no typo's, and as I read I didn't scream in agony once. A wince or three - I wish I'd said that better, oooh, turgid here - but not, to my surprise, excruciating.

I wonder if the world will agree.

Two weeks later, I am still waiting to find out. It's a curious kind of limbo, this period when the book is out in the world but no one has read it yet. I've had two important reviews: from my friend Gerry Caplan and from my daughter. Gerry seemed genuinely to like it, and thrillingly, Anna told me that one day she read for five hours straight. "It's good," she said. High, high praise; I expected her to be bored with the factual, biographical parts. Now I'm preparing for the book launch, issuing invitations and copies of the book, mailing, phoning, checking, making lists, finding bits in the plays for the actors Paul Soles and Kate Trotter to perform.

But in the scramble part of me is still standing, in tears, before the Taj Mahal.

"Jewish Shakespeare" events and speaking engagements

These are the 2007 dates and places so far confirmed for talks on "Finding the Jewish Shakespeare" :

May 1, Toronto: Book launch 5-7 p.m. at Nicholas Hoare Bookstore on Front St., and celebration afterwards at 308 Sackville Street. Books for sale and signing at both places.

June 7, Ottawa: The University of Ottawa.

July 6, Stratford: The Stratford Festival.

October 7, Amherst, Mass.: The National Yiddish Book Center

November 25, Vancouver, to be confirmed: The Vancouver Jewish Book Festival

Elizabeth Hurley and I in Rajasthan

Pending, pending, pending. The book is being printed as we speak, the publicist is preparing her "email blast," bound galleys have been sent to anyone who might "blurb," the book launch is planned for Toronto and speaking engagements set up for elsewhere. At this stage I am convinced that after all this build-up, the actual reading of the book will be a giant disappointment to everyone. So to counter my pre-launch anxiety and impatience I am going to do the most obvious thing: tomorrow I leave for 3 weeks in India. For several years my dear friend Chris has spent the winter there and has begged me to join him; this year, using the ton of travel points I earned from the post-fire renovation of my home - a good story - I am actually going. Our mutual best friend Bruce is also there now. Chris, Bruce and Beth, touring Rajasthan for 20 days - another good story. Just before I went to Rome two years ago, the Pope died, and I shared the city unexpectedly with four million Christian pilgrims. Now I read that Elizabeth Hurley has decided to be married, shortly, in Rajasthan. Perhaps though this news will not result in an overwhelming flood of Elizabeth Hurley fans.

I would love to hear from you. If you write I will figure out how to respond, though perhaps not for the next three weeks.

Namaste,
beth

Birthing a book

"When my book is out ..." "My book will be out in April," "After the book comes out ... " I find myself saying. I'm now almost through the lengthy, tortuous process of taking something that is IN - a compilation of thoughts, ideas, research, words, structure - and pushing it out. The irony of my particular journey through this process is that the independent life of the book has coincided almost exactly with the independence of my children. The book began to germinate when my daughter was in utero, and continued growing through her life and that of my son; he told me once that when I went to work on the book, he felt I was going to tend to his little brother. Now my daughter is nearly 26, living and working on her own; my son, 22 and six foot eight, is living and working in Australia, and demanding little brother is at last moving out too. (A more accurate analogy would be that I have been pregnant with this book for 26 years and now the birth is imminent, but that is too appalling a thought.)

The plan, now, is to get on with other kinds of writing work. But instead of mulling over my next book, I had this website to get going, and now I'm emailing the book publicist in New York, the publishers in Syracuse, the directors of various book fairs, the friends who are helping to organize the book launch here, contacts who may be able to get "blurbs" from famous people. And there's the pitch I wrote to Steven Spielberg, which a screenwriter friend has promised to get to him. A Balenciaga ballgown from Goodwill hangs in my closet, ready to wear to the Oscars.

Yes, fantasyland. I know that every writer with a book coming out imagines that the world is going to change drastically once the glorious object is in reader's hands - money, interest, commissions will flow in, new work, unleashed by renewed confidence and acclaim, will pour out. And I also know that reality, almost always, does not resemble this. No matter. There will be a big party this spring to celebrate an ending and a beginning. I can't wait for both.

Moving out of the 90's and onto the web

My former Toronto neighbour Tom, who now lives in Laguna Beach and is my webmaster (my, that sounds kinky) emailed last night to say, "Congratulations, the site is now live, you have officially moved out of the 90's." I logged on and there was my sparkling new site. Today I keep checking it as if it might have changed overnight - yes, still there. In fact it did change - my friend Deb, a writer in Newfoundland, added the first post to this blog. I know that to anyone under 30 my excitement at all this is absurd - I who have no cell-phone, have never downloaded a song and don't know how an iPod can hold so many songs when it is so very small. And how do they all get in there?

But I have managed to move out of the 90's. Woo hoo!

Here's today's message for writers, from a review by A.O.Scott in the NYTimes Book Review of Alice Munro's latest:
"The point of storytelling, as Munro practices it, is to rescue the literal facts from banality, from oblivion, and to preserve - to create - some sense of continuity in the hectic ebb and flow of experience. 'We can't resist this rifling around in the past,' she writes in an epilogue, 'sifting the untrustworthy evidence, linking stray names and questionable dates and anecdotes together, hanging on to threads, insisting on being joined to dead people and therefore to life.'"

Happy Valentine's Day. L'chaim to you all. To life.