{"id":385,"date":"2011-01-16T13:54:12","date_gmt":"2011-01-16T18:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=385"},"modified":"2011-01-16T13:54:12","modified_gmt":"2011-01-16T18:54:12","slug":"a-new-friend-a-give-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/a-new-friend-a-give-away\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Friend, A Give-away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cWhat really knocks me out is a book, when you\u2019re all done reading it, you wish that the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.\u201d
\n–Holden Caufield, Catcher in the Rye<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is there a reader alive who hasn\u2019t entertained some version of this fantasy? Sometimes, if you\u2019re lucky and the stars line up, the author of one of your favorite books suddenly shows up smack dab in the middle of your life. This year, it happened to me.<\/p>\n

I was sitting in my editor\u2019s office in New York last fall, perusing her shelves, when a book jacket caught my eye: a photo of two Bosc pears and a granny smith apple ripening on a window sill. A title that resonated through my being like the sound of a perfectly tuned note struck on a piano: And I Shall Have Some Peace There. A subtitle that intrigued: \u201ctrading in the fast lane for my own dirt road.\u201d A name that sounded vaguely familiar (where had I heard that name before?): Margaret Roach.<\/p>\n

I dilly-dallied for a moment, trying to figure out a way to get her to offer me one of the precious advance reading copies (\u201cARC\u2019s\u201d in the trade, which are actually bound, uncorrected proofs that are more expensive to produce than finished books and therefore not to be carelessly tossed to every curious passerby).<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d my editor said, waving her hand, \u201cyour books are really different. Margaret used to be the editorial director of Martha Stewart Omnimedia (that\u2019s why I knew the name!). And then, well, she just gave it all up and ran away. To a little cottage in the country. . .\u201d<\/p>\n

By then my begging hand was out, unabashed. I wasn\u2019t leaving the room without a copy of that book in my bag.<\/p>\n

Flash forward a few weeks, to October and the New England Booksellers\u2019 Show in Providence, Rhode Island. I had been invited, along with a slew of other New England authors, to attend a cocktail party for booksellers. Our task was simply to sit at our respective tables, sip wine, sign books, and meet the men and women who, against all odds, continue to fling open their doors every morning and sell real books to readers who still prefer printed words on paper to pixels on a screen.<\/p>\n

I felt lucky to be there. And yet, in the way of someone who has spent most of the last three years sitting at her kitchen table in a pair of sweatpants, typing, I\u2019d obsessed for two days over what to wear to this very public event. (Every sweater I owned was covered with little pills; my dresses were all too, well, dressy; my sturdy black knit pants seemed so old-fashioned and corporate.) The truth is, I haven\u2019t been to a cocktail party in years, not since I left my own publishing career to raise babies and read short stories from home and try my hand at writing. Before leaving home that morning, I\u2019d found a $22 necklace in one of the two clothing stores in my town. Here was an affordable accessory that might place me in the 21st-century–big fat beads instead of tiny ones — hip and festive enough, I thought, to carry the day.<\/p>\n

Two tables down from mine, I suddenly recognized a woman similarly dressed, right down to the safely nondescript black cardigan accented by a chunky necklace almost exactly like my own. Margaret! At some point, between bookseller conversations, we sought one another out. \u201cI just read your book!\u201d we both exclaimed, at the same time. And then, \u201cLook at us, with the same necklace!\u201d By the time we parted ways, we\u2019d exchanged email addresses and phone numbers and promises to get together.<\/p>\n

And get together we did. Since that rainy October evening, I\u2019ve spent many a night at Margaret\u2019s house, doing our middle-aged ladies\u2019 version of a sleep-over. (Out for dinner at 5:30 or 6, tea in her little kitchen, off to our respective beds by nine or so, so we can get up early in the morning and commune with her cat Jack and chat about books and writing and life.)<\/p>\n

On the face of it, I suppose, our books are<\/em> different. Margaret is single, childless, a former high-powered executive who also happens to be a passionately knowledgeable gardener (her phenomenally popular garden blog, http:\/\/www.awaytogarden.com\/<\/a>, has been hailed by a New York Times reporter as \u201cthe best garden blog I\u2019ve ever seen\u201d). While she was being a mover and shaker in the fast-paced world of New York publishing, I was at home with my kids. While she was creating dazzling magazine spreads for Martha Stewart, I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner. While she was becoming an expert on ground covers and how to graft a tomato plant, I was attempting to guide my son through the college application process.<\/p>\n

And yet. The thing that Margaret and I both realized right away was that in the ways that really count, our journeys — and our books — are far more alike than different. Over and over again, as I read her galley, I found myself turning over page corners, making little stars and exclamation points next to her paragraphs, thinking to myself, \u201cExactly!\u201d<\/p>\n

Margaret realized that she could go on doing what she had always done, as she writes: \u201cgoing to the office; returning from the office; going to the office; returning from the office.\u201d Or, she could begin to envision a different sort of life altogether. She could walk away from who she\u2019d been, and begin to discover who she might become. To do so, after a lifetime of reaching for the brass ring, meant confronting the question, \u201cWho am I if I am not mroach@marthastewart.com any longer?\u201d<\/p>\n