brianrayfiction.com Blog

Saturday morning. The sky opens and leaves streets in NC gushing with water. I head onto the highway for McIntyre Books for an 11 am reading. When I reach my exit, Google Maps says “Take a left at 64-West.” I look at my directions. I look at the road. Going left at I-64 means I would drive onto I-64 East. Why doesn’t Google just tell me to go I-64 East. Oh, why do they always do this?

So I do what any natural person would do. I assume that my gut is right and go the wrong way, driving for about 20 minutes. This means I lose 40 minutes at least in the end.

I arrive at the book store in the midst of a flood. They say, “It’s okay, Brian.” For the first time in my life I want them to say, “Nobody came to your reading anyway, so you didn’t let anyone down.” But I did.

Good news is we’re rescheduled for 0ct 9. Now, a few days later I give a reading in Greenvillle full of dinner tables. It’s great. I read with Joni Tenvis, who read a little bit about everything – including a job at a cemetery. Definitely grimmer than working at a steel mill. Among some familiar faces in the audience and surprises were John Jeter and George Singleton.

Now I’m wrapping up my first day of the fall semester. Almost. Still have a three-hour seminar to sit through. At least I get Mon, Wed, Fri off so to speak. It will help now that the book tour is kicking into high gear. I’ve got something every weekend from now through mid October. If anyone’s interested in buying a book so that I’ll be sure to afford the oil changes and tune-ups ahead, you’re welcome to do so. Otherwise, I’m fully prepared to walk up to strangers on the street with my novel and say, “Hey there, sir. How are you? Good, good. Can I ask you a question?” Or, no. Perhaps I should sit on the curb and shout, “Good afternoon, how are ya’ll? Do you have a couple of minutes? You see, I’m an emerging author whose aunt is in the hospital with amnesia…”

All this said in jest. Like all panhandlers, I have 50k in the bank. Seriously, dude.

Finally, the new Pynchon novel is either in my gym bag or my apartment. I’m so thrilled. The last Pynchon book I read the whole way through was Mason & Dixon. I’ve made it about 1/2 through GR. I think Pynchon might be the only author whom you can claim as an influence while having read less than .5 of his works. Anyway, this one’s only about 300 pages! This is a great new direction for him. I was expecting Inherent Vice would fall around, oh, say, a gagillion billion pages.

Other updates: Hub City has secured funds for the second first novel prize. Now this promises to be confusing. “Hub City is pleased to announce the second first novel prize.” Wait. The first second novel prize? I like the sound of that much better, must say.