I spent the entire month of September in a frenzy of fretting and fuming over reviews for my forthcoming book, The Lost Language, which officially enters the world on October 19. I had allowed myself to indulge in the dangerous pastime of Getting My Hopes Up. Now I was facing the dismal reality of Getting My Hopes Dashed.
Would this - the book of my heart, the book that I and others think is my best book by far - be THE ONE? My BREAK-OUT BOOK? The book that would, after 61 previous titles, put me ON THE MAP and make me a HOUSEHOLD NAME? Would the book be showered with starred reviews and receive huge heaps of end-of-year accolades? Would it grant me literary IMMORTALITY?
Or would it be - gasp! - A DUD????!!!!!
Well, with the pub date now two weeks away, I can say, alas and alack, I do not think this book will be THE ONE. I've received four of the major trade reviews so far. All four were good, though two had some quibbles about the book. Two were starred reviews (hooray!), including one of the reviews that had a quibble! Two more are yet to come - IF they come. Many books get no reviews at all.
With each non-star, and each quibble, my spirits sank. As I read of friends' books raking in the stars and getting reviews in The New York Times and on NPR, my spirits sank still further. As Anne Lamott so brilliantly observes in Bird by Bird, jealousy is the besetting sin of writers: "some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of most awful, angry, undeserving writers you know - people who are, in other words, not you."
But with the most recent glowing-but-non-starred review, I felt for the first time a strange relief. At this point, there is really no way the book can be THE ONE. After all, one of my most lavishly praised writer friends made a point of telling me that HER publisher thinks merely getting THREE starred reviews is a terrible disappointment. Plus, it's late in the year now for buzz for a book to grow; indeed, end-of-year accolades are already being announced for 2021, with my book not yet even published.
So: my book is, by all appearances, not going to be THE ONE.
Is it, then, a DUD?
That answer did tempt me. In my heart I issued a petulant wail: "Yes, a DUD! Like the 61 DUDS before it! Because that's who I am, a DUD AUTHOR! Who has written NOTHING BUT DUDS for forty solid DUD-filled years!"
But, really, that is a very silly thing to say.
I have published 62 books.
I loved writing each and every one.
Every single book received at least one excellent review, often three or four or five or six or seven. Just about all of them were chosen as Junior Library Guild Selections; I seldom visit a public library anywhere that doesn't have quite a few of my books in its collection. I've had books translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Arabic. Best of all, teachers, librarians, and parents have shared them, and kids have read them, and some of these kids have loved them. For one of my non-starred, non-bestselling books published twenty-plus years ago, I still get occasional letters from women now in their twenties who tell me how much the book meant to them when they were twelve.
The Lost Language, a Junior Library Guild Selection with two starred reviews already and audio rights sold, and four launch events coming up, and lots of love sent its way by friends who read advanced copies, is not a dud! It is my best book, the book I'm proudest of, and one that is having, by any standard, a very nice success.
Frankly, even if this book were THE ONE, all that would happen is that I'd start agonizing about whether the next book would be AN EVEN BIGGER ONE, or whether I'd be just a one-hit wonder, destined to rest on past laurels and live on past glories.
I always wished that the fisherman's wife in the fairy tale had contented herself with upgrading from the wretched hovel to the charming cottage, rather than obsessively hankering after ever-larger palaces and ever-greater power. It's not a bad idea to learn how to be contented with getting, not EVERYTHING, but ENOUGH.
Maybe it's time for me to start learning this now.
