Last night, GalleyCat co-hosted a reception at McNally Robinson celebrating the publication of The Great Man, the fourth novel from Kate Christensen. (Which was pretty easy; all Sarah and I had to do was say hello to people and tell them how much we love Kate’s writing.) When people say somebody is “a writer’s writer,” it usually means they’re talented but obscure; fortunately the publicity team at Doubleday (led by Nicole Dewey) are doing what they can to make sure that back-half can’t be applied to Kate. And the writers certainly turned out to support Kate. I reunited with Phil Campbell, who’s finishing up the novel to follow his memoir, Zioncheck for President, and chatted briefly with Amanda Stern, just back from a month at Yaddo and getting ready to launch a new season of her reading series at Happy Ending; I caught glimpses of Jami Attenberg and Felicia Sullivan at the far end of the room, and I’m pretty sure I saw Gary Shteyngart walking into the bookstore, too. I also met David Rosen, the author of I Just Want My Pants Back, who told me what it was like filming the “custom video message” that’s running off his home page. “We shot it all in my apartment,” he told me. “My neighbors must’ve been wondering why I was singing so much.” And saying all those names out loud, I suggested. “And there’s a whole bunch of them I left out,” he sighed. “including my agent’s. Whoops!” He said he’d gotten a list of popular ’80s names off the Internet; that explains the Alexis and Tiffany inclusions…
The party featured several food dishes that are described in the novel, including chicken sandwiches with grainy mustard and prosciutto-wrapped cantaloupe; this picture was taken during one of my many detours to the wine bar for a glass of the same sancerre served in the scene Kate read to the crowd. Literary agent Kate McKean (left) was chatting with Brick House‘s Melissa Sarver and Molly Lindley of Lippincott Massie McQuilkin about how she used to have their jobs; I’m guessing it won’t be long before they catch up…although Kate’s got a supercool, but supersecret project that’s bound to raise her stock as well before the year is out.
I tried to get a good picture of Kate, but all the ones I took came out blurry. So instead, here’s a three-minute interview she did with Robert J. Hughes of the Wall Street Journal.