Chris Bohjalian's Blog, page 28

Take a walk on the mild side (also -- why one out of three Brits said they would answer their cell phone during sex)

This past summer, my friend Mark Benz pulled me aside at the gym in Bristol and said, “I nearly killed you.” Mark is a retired metallurgical engineer and an extremely big-hearted guy. He is also scary smart. So, when brilliant, good-natured people might want me dead, I pay attention. “You were checking your iPhone or writing a text when you were crossing the street,” he continued, “and you were completely oblivious to traffic.”

I nodded. The good news? When he had said he’d nearly killed me, he wasn’t thinking retaliation for something I’d done. He didn’t want me dead. The bad news? Apparently, I could have been run over by a car because I was acting like a self-important moron as I crossed Main Street in Bristol.

The truth is, I am hooked on my smart phone. I readily admit it. When the Blackberry was the phone to own, they were christened crackberries because some people’s addictions were so profound. My dependence on my iPhone might be even greater than it was on my Blackberry — not necessarily because the iPhone is a superior product, but because my need to be connected to everything going on in the world is so much more pronounced. Professionally and personally. And I’m not alone. An awful lot of us have become tethered to our smart phones.

Exhibit A? In a recent Vodafone survey, one of out three Brits said they’d answer a cell phone call during sex. One out of two said they’d answer their cell during a wedding. And nearly three out of five would press talk while — to use that great British euphemism — in the loo. (I spend a lot of time in airports, which means I have witnessed the following far too many times to count: The backs of eight guys at eight urinals all talking straight into the wall, with either an earpiece on the side of their head or a cell phone pressed between their shoulder and ear.)

Exhibit B? Sleep experts are starting to worry that young adults may be losing precious shuteye because they are going to bed with their cell phones on the nightstand beside them. In some cases, they do this because they use their phone as their clock and their alarm; in others, it’s because (and here I am conjecturing) they don’t want to miss a text or a tweet, even if it comes in at four in the morning. I know when I’m traveling I use my phone as my alarm, because I have found hotel wake-up calls to be spectacularly undependable. Also, when I use my phone as my alarm, I can check my facebook feed at four in the morning, so I know precisely what my friends are reading, watching, and posting in the middle of the night. Kidding, obviously. I only need to know what they’re reading.

Then there are the folks who are incapable of shutting off their phones while in the audience for a movie or stage play. Worst of all, of course, are the drivers who mistakenly believe they can drive and text simultaneously.

There is a line between being productive and being obsessive, and my sense is that it’s not an especially fine one. Likewise, there is a line between connection and distraction, and that line is not subtle either. We all know how dangerous it is to text and drive. No good ever comes from texting and driving. Never.

Yet people do it.

Likewise, you shouldn’t text while riding your bicycle, but people do that, too. Just ask Bobby Valentine, whose week began with him crashing his bicycle after trying to read a text from second baseman Dustin Pedroia, and ended with him getting fired as Red Sox skipper. (The official scorer ruled the accident an error on the manager, not the second baseman.)

Well, now I will add to that list walking and texting. It’s a bad idea. It took me years to master walking and chewing gum; I will never perfect walking and using my smart phone. The last thing I want is to get run over while reading an email.

So, this morning, I send big thanks to Mark Benz — and I promise I wasn’t multitasking when I wrote this.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on October 7, 2012. Chris’s most recent novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” was published in July.)

10 Questions about Writing I Answered for the Penman Review

by Pamme Boutselis

Award-winning novelist Chris Bohjalian is the author of fifteen books, including “The New York Times” bestsellers, “The Night Strangers,” “Secrets of Eden,” “Skeletons at the Feast,” “The Double Bind,” “Before You Know Kindness,” “Midwives” and his latest book, “The Sandcastle Girls.”

Bohjalian has won the New England Society Book Award in 2012 for “The Night Strangers,” the New England Book Award in 2002 and the Anahid Literary Award in 2000. Many readers were first introduced to his work through “Midwives,” an Oprah Book Club selection, a “Publisher’s Weekly” Best Book, a New England Booksellers Association Discovery pick and a number one-ranked “New York Times” bestseller. He is a former visiting faculty member at SNHU.

“The Sandcastle Girls” published in July 2012 to widespread enthusiasm, debuting at #7 on “The New York Times” bestseller list. Bohjalian said that this is the most important book he will ever write.


Q. You refer to “The Sandcastle Girls” as a book that was in gestation your entire life. What was the process like when you finally started to write?

A. It was invigorating. I know how important the subject is. And I felt energized that after so many years of thinking about the Armenian Genocide, I finally understand how I wanted to tell the story.


Q. Has it been cathartic for you to finally get the story out?

A. No, it wasn’t cathartic. But it was meaningful. It mattered to me and, unlike many of my other books, it felt like I was doing something significant.


Q. While the book had its genesis in your own family’s history, where did the characters come from?

A. I made most of them up. A few, however, had historical models. As I explained in the Author’s Note, Ryan Donald Martin was based on Jesse B. Jackson. Ulrich Lange was based on Walter Rossler. In addition, the two German engineers were inspired by the German nurse, Armen Wegner.


Q. Did you know what their stories might be from the start and how their lives would intersect?

A. No. I never know where my books are going. I think that’s why writing is such fun for me. I have no outline. I depend upon my characters to take me by the hand and lead me through the dark of the story.

Of course, that might also explain why my books go through so very, very many drafts.


Q. You’re known for stopping by bookstores and interacting with the booksellers, which creates tremendous appreciation for you and loyalty to your books. Have you always done that?

A. Yes. It wasn’t all that long ago that my books sold briskly. . .but only among people with my last name. I try never to lose sight of that reality.


Q. It is said that in order to write, one must love to read. How important were books to you in your youth and how did they influence your choice to become a writer?

A. I can’t imagine a novelist who doesn’t love to read. It’s inconceivable to me. When I was 13, my family moved from a suburb of Manhattan to Miami, Fla., and we moved there the Friday before Labor Day weekend. I started school the following Tuesday, and then visited my new orthodontist — a sadist, it would turn out, if ever there was one. He gave me some orthodontic headgear that looked like the business end of a backhoe, and I had to wear the device four hours a day. I certainly wasn’t going to wear it to school, given that immortality as the biggest geek at Palm Springs Junior High wasn’t chief among my aspirations. So I waited until school was out, and then my headgear and I went to the public library … where I read.

That year I discovered Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” William Peter Blatty’s “The Exorcist.” And Peter Benchley’s “Jaws.” But “To Kill a Mockingbird” might be the story that fueled my desire to be a novelist. It would be the book that would teach me that a narrator in a first-person novel is as made-up as the fictional constructs around him or her. It would be among the tales that would drive home for me the importance of linear momentum in a plot.


Q. What do you know now with regard to writing that you wish you had known back when you started out?

A. I wish I had done my homework and research before starting a project. I wish I had interviewed the right people. Some of my earlier books are terrible because, pure and simple, I did not roll up my sleeves and take the time to learn how things work.


Q. What’s the toughest part for you in creating a new book or does it change book to book?

A. It changes book to book. But I always hate reviewing the copy-edited manuscript. THAT is an innermost ring of Dante’s Inferno.


Q. For you, what have the most beneficial things about being a writer been?

A. I love writing. The best thing? I love what I do for a living.


Q. What are the best and worst parts of a book tour?

A. The best parts? Meeting readers. Room service at 11:30 at night when you’ve just made a bestseller list or gotten a really terrific review. There are no “worst” parts. I am so lucky that I GET to go on book tours.


Q. When you want to unwind with a good book, what genre are you most apt to choose?

A. Literary or historical fiction.

’68 Mustang ramps up Mom’s cool quotient

If you want to be the hip high school health teacher, here are two tips: First, drive a 1968 Mustang. This is the strategy employed by Mount Abraham Union High School health teacher (and field hockey coach) Ann Pollender. “It definitely ramps up your cool mom image,” she told me.

Second, be sure and stress that your 1968 Mustang is “lime gold,” the official Ford color, and not “puke green,” the color your children use to describe it. Ann has a daughter in college and a son at Mount Abe.

Now, I’m not a car guy. I’m the kind of guy that opens the hood of a car, looks at what’s there, and murmurs, “Yup. That’s an engine.” I can add washer fluid, but that’s about as good as it gets.

But I took a ride in Ann’s Mustang the other day, and instantly I understood how a person can get excited about a car. It was like a time machine: Suddenly, I was a kid again. There on the dashboard was the AM radio with the square pre-set buttons. There were the two Flash Gordon-esque ovals, one for the speedometer and one for the fuel gauge. And there, running across the middle of the car from the front seat to the back, was the hump: The carpet-covered mesa atop the car’s transmission and drive shaft. (Just for the record, I learned what was under the hump by calling my friend, Dan Adam. Dan knows classic cars and inspected Ann’s Mustang for her. If you had asked me to guess what was under the hump, I would have said “axle,” “gigantic Lincoln log,” or “kayak.” I’m serious: I’m REALLY not a car guy.)

My grandfather – my mother’s father – owned a now classic 1965 Mustang when I was a little boy: White body, black vinyl top. He called it “Tony the Pony,” and buying it might have been the most impulsive, wild and crazy thing he ever did in his life.
And, in some ways, buying the 1968 lime gold Mustang might have been among the more impulsive things that Ann and her husband, Alan Kamman, have ever done in their lives. (Incidentally, that bar is higher than you think: Ann has a terrific ivy tattoo on her ankle.) Alan, a guidance counselor at Mount Abe, saw the Mustang for sale by the side of the road in Danville, Vermont, and recalled a couple of things about his wife: Green was her favorite color and she had a thing for 1968 Mustangs. And because life is short, sometimes you just have to throw common sense to the wind. They bought it.

Ann isn’t precisely sure what it is that she loves about 1968 Mustangs, but it is some combination of Proustian associations with her own childhood, and the exterior and interior aesthetics. The lines of the vehicle. The retro, triangular side windows. The galloping Mustang symbol at the front and the back of the car. “I wanted a car like this since I was a little kid,” she said.

She readily admits it’s not the most practical vehicle in the world. “Did you notice there are no cup holders?” she asked me, laughing. “And AM radio gets a little tiresome. You can only listen to Rush Limbaugh or the Yankees for so long without screaming at the radio.” And it lacks power steering: I watched her making a tight turn on the River Road in Lincoln, and it looked like a serious cardiovascular workout.

Nevertheless, she says driving the car simply makes her happy. That’s all there is to it. “It’s instant hipness,” she said.

It really is: Like a lot of vintage cars, it’s one of those solid Motor City links both to the people we once were, and the people we hope someday to be. Not bad for a couple thousand pounds of metal painted puke green – excuse me, lime gold.

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on September 30, 2012. Chris's most recent novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," was published in July.)

The silver lining in the silver furniture. . .or why my parents' bedroom looked like a brothel

Once upon a time, my father came home from a business trip and my mother had spray-painted all of their wooden bedroom furniture silver. He was not angry, but neither was he pleased. He was incredulous. He reacted with sit-com dad élan. “Our bedroom looks like a brothel!” he said to my mother – though he did not use the word “brothel.” He used a synonym that most decidedly was not a euphemism. He may also have modified his synonym for brothel with an adjective that was, in hindsight, redundant. There is, after all, pretty much only one reason why a person goes to a brothel.

So, maybe he didn’t really sound like a sit-com dad – at least not a sit-com dad on a network or basic cable TV station.

I was not an accomplice to the painting, but in all fairness I knew what my mother was planning. I was in ninth grade. We were living in Miami, Florida, which was why my mother thought it made sense to spray-paint an antique New England armoire, dresser, and bed silver. Florida can do that to a person.

I am telling you this because in mid-August I returned home to Vermont from a rather long business trip myself: 22 days. I arrived in Lincoln around 11:15 on a Saturday night and found that my wife had had the vinyl siding on the front and screen porches replaced with wooden clapboards, the kitchen floor sanded and stained, and she herself had repainted the den. Just for the record, she did not paint it silver. She painted it orange and yellow and it looks spectacular. Some people might say it looks a little too much like the Bhutan flag, but I am not among them. This is because I had never seen the Bhutan flag until I googled “orange and yellow flags.” (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

It was wonderful to be back in Lincoln and the thoughtfulness of my wife’s home improvement plan was not lost on me: I was completely spared the upheaval and chaos that comes with having clapboards banged into place and a kitchen floor you can’t walk on. Our kitchen is accessed directly from our front door, so on those nights when the floor had been stained, my wife was entering the house by climbing in through a living room window.

Now, let me tell you: That’s love. Years ago, I drove a 1984 Dodge Colt hatchback. During the winter of 1990, both passenger doors froze shut and I spent a week climbing in and out of the car through the hatchback. My boss at the ad agency in Burlington where I worked once spotted me clawing my way in through the hatch in my gray flannel business suit and asked rhetorically, “Do you think that car sends the right message to our clients?” He was on to something. That weekend I bought a new car: A Plymouth Colt hatchback.

In hindsight, I think my mom’s silver furniture was a labor of love, too. Ill-conceived, but well-intentioned. She imagined she was sprucing up the house and making it more aesthetically appropriate for Miami. It was simply that my mother’s many strengths did not include interior design. Remember, this was the woman who once decorated a Christmas tree entirely with napkin rings. Not kidding.

In any case, it was fascinating to come home to Vermont a few weeks ago and find so many things that were different. It was actually a bit like Christmas morning. So, to my lovely bride, I say thank you. Thank you for steering clear of the silver spray paint. I love all the improvements and I don’t need to modify my thanks with a euphemism, synonym, or anything a sit-com dad can’t say on TV.

(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on September 23, 2012. Chris's new novel, The Sandcastle Girls, was published in July.)

A stitch in time. . .would really have helped at the Folger Shakespeare Library

I wear a tuxedo only slightly less often than I visit the International Space Station. I own a tux, but it’s stained with fake zombie blood and white clown make-up because its principal use over the years has been as a part of Halloween costumes. Nothing says Halloween better than a middle-aged man dressed up as a vampire clown.

Earlier this week, I actually needed a tux for the PEN/Faulkner Foundation’s annual gala at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. I wasn’t the only Vermonter who had to man up and climb into a monkey suit that night. Poet Major Jackson was there, too. . .in a tux. So was Senator Patrick Leahy. . .in a tux. Senator Leahy was, in fact, one of the hosts. Just for the record, those two seriously represent. They could have been ads for tuxedos.

Me? Not so much. Here’s what happened.

I pulled my tuxedo from the back of my armoire where it sits like, well, a vampire in a casket. The last time I had worn it to a black tie literary gala had been 2003. It was so old it had a seriously scary “Sunset Boulevard” vibe to it. And, of course, it had all that clown make-up. I realized either I had to buy one or rent one for the appearance. Since, based on past experience, I am not likely to need a tuxedo again until 2021, I decided to rent.

Choosing a tuxedo for a literary gala is unbelievably easy. There are two reasons for this. It’s not your prom and you’re not 17. Also, this isn’t the 1970s. This means that pastels aren’t an option. You ask for black. You walk in to a store, get measured, and get out. Which is what I did. I even tried it on when I picked it up a week later.

What I did not do, however, was check the seams on the pants. Or make sure that the soles of the shoes weren’t made of black ice. I should have.

Fast-forward a few days later to my hotel room in Washington, D.C. at 5:20 in the afternoon. I am being picked up at 5:30 to go to this soiree, and I am recalling that old ad for men’s formalwear that insisted, more or less, “Every guy looks good in a tux.” I am – to quote Billy Crystal imitating Fernando Lamas – “going to look absolutely mahvelous.” As I am tying my rented shoes, however, I notice that the inseam along my right knee is split. The split is only two inches in length, but it opens like a yawn every time I bend my knee or cross my leg. Moreover, along with Major Jackson and eight other writers, I am going to be speaking on a stage at this gala and then, after I speak, sitting in a chair on that stage. So, I stand up, planning to see if there is one of those emergency sewing kits in the hotel bathroom, and my right foot shoots out as if the sole has been painted with Crisco. It was a seriously impressive hotel pratfall. And there was no needle and thread in the bathroom.

I wasn’t especially panicked because all I was looking at was moderate humiliation. There are worse things that can happen to a person than giving a reading at the Folger Shakespeare Library with a rip in your pants, right? There are more embarrassing things that can happen to a person than slipping as you cross the stage to the podium at the Folger Shakespeare Library, correct?

All the way from the hotel to the Folger, in the backseat of the car, I practiced how to sit like a spinster. And then when we arrived at the library, I rehearsed walking across the stage, stomping my feet on the floor like Frankenstein. It worked. I made it to the podium when the readings began. Then I sat in my seat with my knees and ankles glued together.

I looked as relaxed as the Queen of England with a handful of Buffalo wings at a NASCAR tailgating party. But that tux? It looked awesome.

(This column originally ran in the Burlington Free Press on September 16, 2012. Chris's new novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," was published this summer.

Of Moose and Men: Antlers Trump Camcorder in Westford, Vermont

It was a week ago today that a moose went Tom-Cruise-on-Oprah’s-Couch crazy in Brent Olsen’s yard. Olsen, a retired IBM senior packaging analyst, lives in Westford. Actually, the moose, based on the video, was behaving more like Mel Gibson than Tom Cruise. We’re talking serious anger management issues.

And, yes, there is a video and the moose is clearly no charmingly daft Bullwinkle.

Here’s what happened. Last Sunday morning, about 7:15, Olsen awoke to find a moose rubbing up against his house and then, much to his amazement, trying to walk over his parked Subaru station wagon, as if the vehicle were a mere fallen log. So, Olsen channeled his inner Peter Shumlin. Remember back in April when the Governor raced outside to protect his birdfeeders from bears? Olsen ran into his yard to try and shoo the moose away from his car. Just for the record, Olsen was wearing a pair of cut-off shorts, which isn’t a lot of clothing, but it might be one piece more than the Governor was wearing when he went to battle the bears for his birdfeeders.

And, because it was a moose, Olsen brought a camcorder with him.

The moose took one look at the camera and reacted like a Hollywood star who has dealt one time too many with the paparazzi. It charged. So, Olsen dropped the camcorder and retreated back inside his home. “The moose just came at me full force as I stood behind my front door,” Olsen recalled. “It kept charging the house.”

Olsen lives in a first floor apartment on the property, and the entrance is under the deck. As a result, the moose’s antlers kept getting twisted under the deck’s posts, preventing the animal from using them on the front door. Olsen’s roommate, a hunter, loaded his rifle.

I’ve seen moose a couple of times in my life. So has my wife. They are not exactly the Mini Coopers of the natural world. They’re big. Exhibit A? Jenna Reed, the game warden who responded to Olsen’s mayday, estimated that the moose in his yard weighed 700 pounds.

Exhibit B? One time, my wife was crouched in the woods in Underhill State Park, photographing, when she heard some grunting and saw steam above her. Her first reaction was that it must have been car exhaust, but there were no roads anywhere near her. And a car didn’t explain the grunting. She stood up slowly and saw no more than a dozen yards from her a pair of antlers almost as wide as a couch. The steam was the moose’s exhalation as it watched her. Fortunately, this moose didn’t have an attitude. For a long moment, my wife and the moose gazed at each other, and then they both walked slowly in opposite directions. The difference? My wife did not take her eyes off the moose; the moose was not especially interested in my wife.

Olsen’s moose was another story. And, sadly, it would not turn out to have a happy ending. As soon as Jenna Reed arrived at the property, the game warden said she “just knew the animal wasn’t right. You could tell by the swaying of the head, the way the eyes were glazed over. It kept tripping. It was scared and it felt cornered.” She had to shoot the sick animal. Based on the animal’s behavior on the video, it is possible the moose had a parasite called brain worm.

“We don’t like to put down animals,” Reed said, “but it’s part of what we do. It’s unfortunate. And this was an aggressive moose.”

Reed also has some sound advice if you see a wild animal in your yard: “Don’t put yourself in a dangerous situation. Leave it alone. Stay inside. If it’s threatening, call the game warden through the State Police dispatchers.”

And, of course, get dressed. This has nothing to do with bears and moose or even Rocky the Flying Squirrel. You’ll just feel a lot better about yourself when you see your story in the news.

(This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on September 9, 2012. Chris’s new novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” was published in July.)

Perhaps the happiest room on Earth

According to Faith Resnick, “People who hate cats will come back as mice in their next life.” That means that people who hate kittens will come back as a laser light. Or the plastic seal at the top of a milk carton.

Sure, there are curmudgeons in this world who hate cats, but even Winston Churchill abided them. (Supposedly, he preferred pigs to both cats and dogs.)

I happen to like dogs, cats and pigs, but we’ve always been a cat family. We have six. Just for the record, we’ve never had pigs, which is probably a good thing since almost every cat we’ve ever owned has been a real turd hockey fanatic.

In any case, last month I spent a few minutes inside something called the Kitten Room. You can walk inside there for free, but someday someone is going to figure out that the Kitten Room is a real moneymaking opportunity. My sense is that people would pony up serious scratch to hang out for a few minutes inside there. Think lawyer fees.

The Kitten Room is a sunny enclave inside the new Homeward Bound Animal Welfare Center in Middlebury, Vermont, the no-kill animal shelter formerly known as the Addison County Humane Society. It is filled with pillowed ladders and cubbies and cat toys and … kittens.

I went there on Aug. 24, immediately after the ribbon cutting ceremony and opening celebration for the new shelter: A breathtakingly well-conceived (and, yes, beautiful) new facility to care for neglected, abused, and unwanted animals — especially cats and dogs. It cost a little over $1 million, most of which was raised in Addison County. My wife volunteers there weekly, working with the cats most in need of attention. Four of our family’s six cats are from the shelter. Jackie Rose, executive director, and her staff and board and the design team — and all those volunteers — accomplished something extraordinary.

Which brings me back to the Kitten Room. It was the first thing my wife wanted to show me when she was giving me the tour of where she spends every Tuesday afternoon. It was amazing. I’m not kidding when I tell you that I believe people would pay to hang around inside there. It might be the happiest place on earth that doesn’t have short people in giant mouse heads or plastic duck masks.

But don’t take my word for it; take Wanda Goodyear’s. Wanda is a neighbor here in Lincoln and she just turned seven. She and her mom, Jen, were in the Kitten Room the same day as I was. “There were nine or 10 kittens in there and it was so much fun!” Wanda told me. She particularly loved watching a pair of kittens at the cat door linking the Kitten Room with the outdoor playpen: The two were batting it back and forth, trying to figure out how one could get out while one was trying to get in.

Wanda fell in love with a four-month old gray kitten named Simone. “Simone liked to be held, and she loved to be on my lap and didn’t want to get up,” Wanda said.

Simone is one of 125 cats at the shelter. You can see why a facility like Homeward Bound matters.

And then, of course, there are all the dogs. Among the speakers at the ribbon cutting ceremony was Ken Barlow, owner of 92.1, WVTK on your radio dial. WVTK — especially general manager and DJ Bruce Zeman — has been a tremendous supporter of the shelter and its capital campaign.

“We always wanted WVTK to be a community station, and animals are a part of the community, too,” Ken said.

Indeed they are, which is why it’s worth celebrating the revitalized Homeward Bound — and, of course, championing all of the shelters across Vermont. My thanks to everyone who works and volunteers at them.

And that Kitten Room? A great gift to the county. All it needs is a turd hockey rink.

* * *

Chris's most recent novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," was published in July.

Why Lauren Conrad went Jeffrey Dahmer on Lemony Snicket

Earlier this month, TV personality and novelist Lauren Conrad posted a video showing how to jazz up a boring white storage box. The solution? Cut apart your old books and use a glue gun to paste the spines to the side. A lot of folks in publishing were outraged that she would cavalierly cut apart books – in this case, her collection of Lemony Snicket’s “A Series of Unfortunate Events” – but the thing I found most frightening was watching her work with an X-Acto Knife. I watched the video, terrified: It was kind of like watching the movie, “Saw.” I was convinced that any moment the star of “The Hills” was going to cut off a finger and offer the world a seriously unfortunate event.

It’s also worth noting that Martha Stewart would have been appalled by Conrad’s final product. If you are going to eviscerate your books, at least eviscerate them evenly. The final project reminded me of the tie rack I made for my dad when I was a ten-year-old Webelo: We were supposed to use a coping saw to make a duck, and I used a coping saw to make what, in the end, looked like an amoeba.

But at least I didn’t cut off a finger.

In any case, I wasn’t nearly as appalled by Conrad’s craft as some of my peers – and I love the book made of paper and ink and glue. Who knows? Maybe I still feel a little guilty for drawing the Starship Enterprise in the sky above the ocean on the dust jacket of my mother’s first edition of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.” I was seven or eight. I also drew colorful birds in the silhouette of the tree on her first edition of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” I was twenty-seven or. . .

Never mind.

And perhaps I would have felt differently if Conrad were eviscerating my books – but I’m pretty sure that mostly I’d have been flattered.

What I found most interesting about the video is Conrad’s acknowledgment that even now, well into the digital age, paper books add style to a room. Certainly this was the case well before the digital age. People have been decorating with books since the advent of printing. Actually, we were decorating that way well before printing. But Conrad reminded us that the books we choose to put on our shelves say as much about who we are as the pictures or paintings we hang on our walls. When I gaze at the books in my library in my home, the room in which I write, I can recall where I was when I read a great many of them. Likewise, I enjoy visiting people and seeing what books line their walls.

And, yes, I get a Titanic-sized ego rush when I am flipping through a magazine and see one of my books as a decorative prop: “Midwives” on a nightstand or “The Double Bind” on a dresser.

Conrad’s celebration of the aesthetics of paper actually drove home for me why I love bookstores. It’s not simply the browsing – discovering new stories I want to read. It’s the beauty of all those books. The truth is, on some level we all still have a totemic connection to books made of paper. I understand the allure of the eBook and I certainly don’t want to vilify my friends and family who read novels on Kindles and Nooks and iPads. I am thrilled when people at airports introduce themselves to me and show me which of my books they are reading on their eReader.

So, I’m giving Conrad a pass for going Jeffrey Dahmer on a collection of Lemony Snicket stories. I’m not about to disembowel a book myself to make a box. And I’d much prefer that Conrad was decorating with the whole book, not merely the spine. But I’m still grateful that she appreciates the importance of surrounding oneself with the stories that feed our souls.

* * *

This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on August 26, 2012. Chris’s new novel, “The Sandcastle Girls,” was published last month.

Pie in the sky? At the Fair, fried dough comes first.

The Champlain Valley Fair, opening in Essex Junction a mere six days from today, is a beloved Green Mountain tradition for many reasons, but the main one is this: It’s the only place in Vermont where you can vomit from a speeding swing ten stories up in the air.

Chris Ashby, director of marketing for the Champlain Valley Exposition, is a seasoned pro when it comes to discussing what the Fair calls “the ten best days of summer,” but even he found it difficult to dial down his enthusiasm when he was describing for me the newest addition to this year’s cavalcade of rides: The Sky Flyer.

“Do you know the Yo-Yo?” he began. “It’s sometimes called the Flying Swing. You sit in a chair and you’re twirled around a circle maybe 20 or 25 feet in the air. Well, the Sky Flyer is one of those swings, but you’re 100 feet in the air!”

I know the Yo-Yo well. Once before at the Champlain Valley Fair, when my daughter was little, I went on the Yo-Yo with her and her friend, Ellen. We were each in our separate seats, which resemble the chairs in which you put a toddler on a backyard swing seat. Perhaps because I had just eaten a slab of fried dough the size of a Mini Cooper and enough fried onion rings to stuff a beanbag chair, I exited the Yo-Yo feeling a little. . .off. I started to sit on the grass, but then realized I would be better off on my hands and knees, both so that no one could see that I was seriously green and to protect my shirt in the event all that fried food was destined to see the light of day once again. Inevitably, that was when two really delightful readers of this column saw me and wanted to chat. They wanted to chat a lot. Me? I was afraid to open my mouth and risk vomiting on their sandals.

In any case, this is the first time that the Sky Flyer has come to the Fair. (Note: If you google the term “Sky Flyer,” you may find another ride, which is also called the Sky Flyer. To see the correct Sky Flyer, visit the Reithoffer web site. Reithoffer is the company that brings the thrill rides to the Champlain Valley Fair. Even they categorize it as a “Spectacular” ride, and I’m pretty sure that only those attractions that can induce vomiting from skyscraper heights earn that vaunted distinction.) So, I am really excited and will be among those climbing aboard the Sky Flyer at the Fair next weekend.

Unlike in past years, however, I may steer clear of the fried dough before getting in line. This is not a safety precaution. There is simply other fried food to sample. Ashby told me he is particularly excited about a cookie stand that will be deep-frying Nutter Butter and chocolate chips cookies, as well as the traditional fried cookie favorite, the Oreo. And if I decide that I actually want a vegetable – though vegetables are the wallflowers of fair food – there is always a southern food kiosk offering fried okra.

And, of course, I may just binge at the sugarhouse. I love the sugarhouse. So does my wife. It’s only a matter of time before someone starts deep-frying Vermont maple syrup cookies. When that happens, we will have found the true meaning of life and I will have to be dragged from the Champlain Valley Fair by the draft horses.

In the meantime, I will be plenty satisfied by the new rides and the fried foods. And the miniature horses. And the giant pumpkins. And the racing pigs. And the Mutts Gone Nuts. And the insult clown

It’s a lot to look forward to.

One warning: If you see me at the Fair and I am in line for the Sky Flyer, stand clear. Centrifugal force can be potent – and chances are I have just eaten a half-dozen fried Nutter Butters.

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This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on August 19, 2012. Chris's new book is the novel, "The Sandcastle Girls."

Always smile at the dead bears at the airport

Last Saturday night I returned home to Lincoln, Vermont after a three-week book tour, and I learned something important: Never take the Burlington International Airport and everyone who works there for granted, even if the airport sometimes feels like a parking garage in search of a Cinnabon.

Make no mistake: I like our airport. I’m amused when our TSA officers tell me how much they enjoyed one of my novels or a particular column as they pat me down to make sure that I’m not a terrorist. I appreciate the fact that our gift shop takes books – including mine – seriously. It’s a terrific bookstore, among the best at any airport I visit.

If you have any doubts about how difficult it is to work at an airport, however, I give you Exhibit A: Gordon Coffin of the illustrious Pellston Regional Airport in northern Michigan. Pellston is one of those airports where taxidermy trumps shopping: There are way more big dead bears than restaurants and stores. In all fairness, I saw it on roughly an hour’s sleep, but I swear: It looks like a rustic lodge in the Adirondacks that once in a while has a regional jet parked outside. Gordon is a retired travel agent who works there a couple of days a week to make his retirement a little more interesting.

Essentially, what happened was this. I woke up on a Thursday in Milwaukee, flew at the crack of dawn to Minneapolis, and did two events in Minnesota. Then, after my evening event, I flew to Michigan, landing at Detroit Metro Airport at 2:18 in the morning. Detroit’s airport is massive, but when I saw it, there was literally no sign of human habitation for hundreds of yards. Between the exit and the entrance to the Westin Hotel, which is attached to the airport, I saw a fellow cleaning the floor and one policeman. That was it. It was like a zombie plague had wiped out most of the planet. I took a catnap between 3:15 and 4:15 in the morning at the Westin, and then was picked up at five in the morning and driven five hours north to Petoskey, Michigan. There I spoke at a lovely restaurant before a crowd of lunchtime readers and signed books until 4:00 in the afternoon. Then I was brought to the Pellston Airport for my 5:30 flight to Detroit and then, in theory, to Boston.

I do lead a glamorous, albeit sleep-deprived, life. I know that.

So, back to the Pellston Airport. That afternoon, Gordon Coffin is behind the counter and has to break the news to me that I will not be on the flight to Detroit. There has been a ticket snafu and I do not have a seat. Then, two hours later, he has to be the one to tell me that I will not be on the last flight to Detroit either, because that plane is missing a part. It’s not going anywhere. He also gets to inform me that the guy who owns what is, apparently, the only taxicab in Pellston isn’t picking up the phone and the airport is closing.

Just for the record, my three hours at Pellston weren’t completely wasted. There were five other people stranded at the airport and one, Nell Mabry Hartleib, bought my new book on the spot with her Nook. (Thank you, Nell!)

So, Gordon wonders what I am going to do, and I tell him that my publisher has found a hotel room for me in Petoskey, about half an hour away.

“How big are your bags?” Gordon asks.

“Two leather carry-ons,” I tell him. “Not even rollers.”

“My car’s small, but they’ll fit,” he says, nodding, and we exit the hunting lodge and wave to the dead bears, and climb into his Miata convertible. He drives me all the way to my hotel – an hour out of his life on a Friday night.

My sense is that there are Vermonters at Burlington International Airport who would do that, too. Nevertheless, there’s a lesson here – and it’s not merely to look sleep-deprived and pathetic when you need help.

It’s this: Always smile at the airport. You never know how you’re going to get home.

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This column originally appeared in the Burlington Free Press on August 12, 2012. Chris's new novel, "The Sandcastle Girls," debuted at # 7 on the New York Times bestseller list last week.