I Was a World Book Night Giver

It's true.  This year, I was a World Book Night giver, and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.  Never heard of World Book Night?  That's not surprising if you live in the US, as this was our inaugural year (even so, we had 25,000 givers across the country!  Let's have a big 'Woot!' for that!),  and it was only the second year for the UK and Ireland.  For those who don't know, it works like this:  you sign up, pick your top 3 favorite books from the list they give you, hope you get your first choice (I did), and then wait until you get the email saying your books are ready to pick up.  You then pick up your free (yes, free!) books and, on April 23rd, start passing them out to the literary-deprived like Santa Clause passing out goodies from his big red bag. 

I have to say, for my first time as a WBN giver, it was a pretty special one.  I've been using the term "full circle," which is the most apt way I can put it.  There were 30 titles to choose from.  One of them was a work by Stephen King.  As most people know, sai King is a very prolific writer, so really, WBN could have chosen from any of his 49 novels (and counting).  However, they happened to choose The Stand.  Why is this noteworthy to me?  Being a King fan (yeah, no big reveal there), I've read most of his books, and The Stand isn't even my favorite (though it's in the top 10).  But, you see, it's the way I first came to that story, long ago, in another life, that made the ability to give this particular piece of fiction like a little slice of kismet to me.

When I was 15 years old, I was in a bit of a pickle with my mother.  We were homeless and running from enemies unknown and unseen, except by her.  When you are a woman with a teenage daughter, you are desperate, and you have no place to go, where you go is a shelter.  A battered women's shelter, to be specific, because their locations are secret and this secret will, theoretically, keep you safe.  We were there to disappear, to Escape.  It's a long, sordid story (well, maybe not so long), and I'm not going to tell it all here.  But, suffice it to say, my world was in complete disarray.  We stayed at several shelters that year, and it was at one of those shelters that I came across a copy of The Stand.  The boyfriend I had left behind in a calmer, and to my 15 year old mind, more Utopian realm, had been after me to read this particular novel (this was before my disappearing girl act, you understand).  I had read two other King novels, also at boyfriend's request (he was the catalyst that started the SK fire within me; who knew I'd turn out to be such a junkie?), and had already developed a healthy appreciation for the man's work.  So, I snatched it up.

If you don't know, The Stand is an epic* post-apocalyptic fantasy/horror in which a runaway flu-like virus developed by the US military infects nearly the entire US population and wipes out life as we know it.  A few puzzlingly immune souls remain.  And they, the scattered survivors, must come together to fight the ultimate battle of good and evil.  It's a fantastic story and I recommend it to anyone.  Seriously.  Of course, when I cracked open the first pages of this rather lengthy tome, I was in the midst of a full-blown, snot-oozing summer cold, and had half convinced myself that the end of the human race would start with me.  But, I read on.

Looking back now, I realize just how much those books, and that book in particular, helped me through some of the most terrifying times of my life.  It didn't matter that what I was reading was scary in its own right.  It was the voice of the author, the truth of the characters... I knew it would be okay.  Not that it would end well, there's never any guarantee of that, but whatever happened would be just as it should be, would be, well, I've said this before: true in the telling.  I trusted him.  I knew Uncle Stevie (as he now refers to himself on occasion) would see me through.  And, while I was reading, no matter how unstable the world around me, I wasn't afraid.  I had an anchor, a link to a world where people write amazing and creative things, touch the human spirit, and share it with the rest of us.  I wasn't alone.

And now, I thought, here I am, April 2012 and all grown up, and I have the opportunity to give books--that book--to anyone I like, no strings attached.  Can you guess who got the first several?  I went crazy and called or emailed every shelter I came across.  Some responded, some didn't.  The local battered women's shelter never got back to me, and I think Catholic Charities might have thought such filth (it's a horror novel!) was unfit for the poor unwed mothers they put up in the shelter I inquired about.  But I got to hand them out to a soup kitchen (I know a lady who volunteers there and she said she's got some regulars who try to circulate and trade any books they can get their hands on) and, most fulfilling, to our youth services emergency shelter.  That last one is for kids ages 12-17 who are homeless, runaways or somehow displaced, and need a safe place to go.  A place for teenagers, to keep them safe... that resonated.  They got the bulk of my loot.  The rest were handed out randomly to strangers at the downtown bus station, to my downtown parking garage attendant, to unsuspecting patrons and employees at a Whole Foods Market.  Some of them were probably readers already, and nearly all of them stared at me for a moment while they tried to process who I was and why I was holding out this phone-book-thick paperback to them.  It's free?  Um... And then I'd quickly explain, this is just a fiction novel, Stephen King (maybe you've heard of him?).  It's not religious propaganda and I'm not selling anything.  Really.  Free.  They got the picture in the end.

Presently, the deepest most desperate desire of my heart is this:  that even just one of those twenty copies I distributed touches someone the way it touched me.  That someone going through hard times has found a safe place in this work of fiction, and that it helps to carry them through.  Whatever literary gods there are, I pray you grant me this one wish.  Please.  This is how I pay it forward; how I can come full circle.

Will I be doing this next year?  Most definitely.  A new year, with new book choices.  How could I resist?  I hope I do this every year for the rest of my life.  Viva la World Book Night!


*by this I do not mean 'epic' the way my son would say, "Hey mom, this pink bendy straw is totally epic!"  I mean the dictionary definition of epic, as per dictionary.com,  to wit:

ep·ic

   [ep-ik]  Show IPA

adjective Also, ep·i·cal.

1.

noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usuallycentered upon a hero, 
in which a series of greatachievements or events is narrated in elevated style: 
Homer's Iliad is an epic poem.

2.

resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on thefounding of the country.

The Dark Tower, At Last

   I wrote this in the wee morning hours this past Sunday.  But due to some technical difficulties and life hinderances, I am only now able to post.  I hope this finds you well.

I FINISHED IT!

Yes, it's true, friends.  I have come to the end of the gunslinger's long journey, the completion of Stephen King's magnum opus, and I am here to make my report.  You'll get no spoilers from me, however.  Nay, never in life, for I would not be the one to ruin or lessen the experience for those who have not yet traveled this path.  I myself had the opportunity to walk through this world innocent, never knowing what lie over the next hill.  And I would have you do the same, for that, I believe, would be the author's wish.  Let him tell it on his terms.

What I will give you instead are my impressions, though they may be vague.  Think of this as a diary entry written by one who, though compelled to record their experiences, is paranoid that the diary itself may slip into the wrong hands.

The Dark Tower, the final installment of Stephen King's Dark Tower series, is, of course, beautiful and terrible and, at times, nearly unbearable.  There came a point (two points, actually, now that I think of it) when I had to put it down.  I had to take a break for a day (and once for two) because I was so shattered and so (let's admit it) depressed that I didn't know if I could go on.  But of course, I did go on.  Like the gunslinger, I was too close.  I had to see this through to the end.  And I can tell you, bittersweet though it may be, it is well worth it.  There is joy here, and a terrifying twist of fate that made me shudder.  (I think my exact words, muttered under my breath in hushed, horrified tones, were, "No f-ing way…")  But it is brilliance all the same, a true masterpiece.  And it is perfect.

The personal touches, by the way, sai King… you said you hoped they weren't pretentious.  They weren't, though I must admit I was a mite scared of that when they first came up.  But, of course, and as always, you didn't disappoint.  And we, your "constant readers", we all say thankya.  Truly, for this epic tale is worth every last syllable.

As a quick side note, I have a friend who got snagged at the end of Wizard and Glass (Vol. IV, ya ken).  There was some oddity there she couldn't get past and so never picked up the Fifth (Wolves of the Calla).  I would urge this friend (and any of you that may have a similar problem) to go on.  The journey deepens and, in some respects, gets wilder still.  But hang in there.  There are places to see and people to meet and experiences I wouldn't have you miss for all the worlds.  (See Jake Chambers vs. a New York taxi cab.  It is worthy.)

All in all, this is an addictive and powerful series, seemingly infused with a living, breathing soul of the kind that makes really, really good fiction what it is.  There are many twists and turns and backtracks along the way.  But what may seem random at first finds its way to its purpose and becomes so crucial to the story that, by the end, you can't see how it could have been told without it.

The characters in The Dark Tower are like dear friends to me now, and I am sad to see it end.  But I suppose it's time to move on.  Get out of Stephen King's glammer for awhile.  Oh, there is still much more of King's world that I have yet to explore.  Under the Dome, for instance, which I bought as soon as it came out and which sits unopened (aside from the teensiest peek at the inside dust jacket, just to see what it might be about… it is tantalizingly blank, adding almost irresistible mystery to the novel) on my computer desk.  And I've never read Cujo or Needful Things.  (And what kind of King fan hasn't read Cujo?)  But, alas, I must put these off for a little while longer.  I believe even Master King would agree that too limited a reading diet isn't good for the writer's mind.  I have some other tales waiting for me, spun by other wordslingers.  Perhaps The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen, which I bought on a whim.  Or that YA novel which intrigued me… Unwind by Neal Shusterman.  Whatever I choose, it's time to go out and try something new.

As the boy said, there are other worlds than these.

Your Soul in Print

I've taken a bit of a break of late.  Life's been hectic and it's been easier to read the works of others than to use words of my own.  But hopefully my little mental reprieve is coming to an end. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm still reading, and plenty.  It's a happy addiction that I have no plans of curbing.  I've finally come to The Dark Tower, the final volume in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, and it is every bit as enthralling as the rest.  Of course, having recently finished Song of Susannah (book VI of the series, ya' ken), I now understand more fully than ever before just how very personal this story is to King.  That realization (underlined, bolded and lit up with crimson neon) made my heart actually go out to this man whom I have never met but whose works I have been following for nigh on 17 years (not quite 19, but nearly, very nearly).  Because I get it.  At least I think I do.  I understand that these words we write, fictional or not, these are pieces of our souls, on paper and in print for the world to see and live vicariously through.  I get the compulsion – the feeling that you can't not write it down, write something, by the gods.  And I understand how painful the process can be – the mind-numbing task of getting it all out, of taking it from the concept that seemed to explode in your head one day down to written words on paper, and trying for all you're worth to get it perfect, to do the story justice, for God's sake.  All you can do is get the words down through your own fumbling human hands, filtered through your limited human experience and your never-completely-adequate vocabulary.  When it's big, when it matters to you, sitting down to the computer (or to the blank page with ink pen in hand) is like going to church or entering the sacred circle, performing your sacred duty, and giving thanks to your muse (or whatever you call the place where your inspiration comes from) while simultaneously hoping they picked the right schmuck to interpret this beautiful (or horrible or devastating or hilarious… in the end, they're all beautiful) tale. 

Sai King, if it's like this for you, if it is still, then I get it. 

And so I wander through my own wooded forest; a place strange and unfamiliar, where the landscape can change at a moment's notice and the light is tricky; the land of the unfinished story.  It's been slow going and may take another year yet just to get it all down, between the full time job and the mental dry spells, but what choice do I have?  As I said before, there's that compulsion, that inability to turn away from that fascinating shimmer that is your story, even when the going is hard and the visibility is nil.  It's got me, this one, so I'll keep plodding along until I find my way to the end. 

In the mean time, I have my blog to make note of my observations.  In the future, I'll try to be more consistent with my reports.  I hope you don't get too impatient.  When the mind wanders, it sometimes takes the scenic route back.