I saw two phenomenal performances in the last three days.  The first was delivered by an up-and-coming actress who goes by the name of Meryl Streep.  Five years ago she played Arkadina in The Seagull in Central Park and this month she takes on Mother Couage, one of the most complex and strenuous roles ever written for the stage.  It's a devastating play, rarely done in the U.S., partly because of the challenge in casting a performer in the title role who can pull off the contradictions in the character, sing a few songs, and keep an audience fully engaged for over three hours.  I'd read the play several times, but never seen a production.  I looked forward to it--if anyone could do it, Meryl could.  (That's one of my core beliefs.  I love that woman.  I was once asked if I were a stalker, whom would I stalk?  Meryl Streep.  No question.  I wouldn't be one of those violent stalkers, though...I'd be more interested in following her into book stores and music shops, taking note of her purchases, and trailing her through museums to see what she's drawn to.)  As you might expect, Streep brought to the stage an entirely new physicality--hints of a scrapper--with an original accent, a new laugh, and a facility to simultaneously convey courage and anxiety, certainty and doubt, insouciance and desperation.  Above all, she plays a mother painfully outliving all of her children with a recognition of her own culpability.  At the heart of the play is the debilitating argument that no one is untouched by war.  During the lullaby, as Mother Courage wept over the body of her daughter, a helicopter hovered above the mise-en-scene, a sound reminding us of 9/11 and the recent terror plot involving explosives in carry-on's.  I spent Sunday taking naps and staring out the window.

And last night, at 10pm, the superb Andrea Burns hit the stage at the new Metropolitan Room to perform her first solo cabaret show.  I was seated in front and warned by her husband, Peter, that her glass and bottle of water were on my table.  Prankster that I am, I immediately began wondering what I could do with this glass and this bottle...but I restrained myself.   In fact, I became the unofficial water boy, replenishing her glass throughout the show.  Andrea did drink quite a bit, which made Colleen, who was sitting across from me, very nervous.  Fearing that Andrea would start reaching for one of her glasses of wine, Colleen knocked back her Pinot Grigio faster than a coed doing shots at a frathouse.  I fell in love with Andrea when she performed in one of my one-acts several years ago.  During tech, as she sat onstage in the dark, she repeatedly inched her way into another actor's spotlight just to hear me crack up.  Since then, we've had this mutual drive to make each other laugh, not really content until one of us has hit the floor.  Smart, funny, beautiful and crazy talented, she's one of the few performers I'd a hop a plane to catch.  I flew to Chicago a few years ago to see her in the role of Dot in Sunday in the Park with George.  My review?  "Brilliant."  Last night, Andrea's show dealt with her obsessions with musical theater and seventies pop vocalists.  Her music ranged from Sondheim and Joni Mitchell to Gloria Estefan and Melissa Manchester.  With a childhood spent in Miami, a product of a Venezuelan princess and a Jewish father with ties to the Catskills, she shared stories between and in the midst of songs.  My favorite bit was an inspired monologue about the role she's been playing for well over a decade.  She first sang Maria in West Side Story as a high school student before landing the role in a European tour when she was eighteen.  She toured that for years and married her "seventh Tony."   A couple years ago, after giving birth to their son, 8lbs. 15oz., she flew off to play the "sixteen-year-old virgin" opposite a twenty-three-year-old.  He was sitting next to me, one of the Jersey Boys currently on Broadway, and young enough to be Andrea's child.  (That, of course, is not at all true...I put that in here purely for the joy of hearing Andrea scream 150 blocks away.)  She'll be performing this cabaret again, so I don't want to ruin the end of this routine--le'ts just say she imagines playing Maria in her eighties and channels a certain octagenarian we know and love.  My review?  "Hilarious."

A final note:  after her first number, Andrea greeted a few friends in the audience, taking my hand and introducing me to the full house as a "newly published author."  And I successfully refrained from grabbing the microphone and saying, "That's right.  Thank you, Andrea.  The book's called Suspension and as of eight o'clock this evening, there are more signed copies at St. Mark's Bookshop, Three Lives, Shakespeare and Company and four additional Barnes and Noble stores."  (Meryl Streep, by the way, did not break character and introduce me to anyone in her audience, which might explain why Andrea's paragraph is seven lines longer.)

I leave for the west coast tour tomorrow.  For a look at the itinerary, click here.

I'm getting a lot of comments on the podcast interview for Harper Perennial, so here's another link if you'd like to listen.

Suspension reviewed in the August 4 issue of Entertainment Weekly.

Suspension selected as an Editor's Paperback Pick for August at AOL Books.  Hit the 7 button.

My hour long flight has just been extended owing to fog in San Francisco, so we’re sitting on the runway in LA, just waiting.  It’s been a morning of lines…lines to check in, to hand over luggage to TSA screening, to pass through security, and to buy breakfast.  But all’s good.  LA was a fantastic kickoff.

LOS ANGELES PART ONE--Friday and Saturday

I landed here on Friday and within three hours was holding a margarita in one hand and using the other to paddle through a pool high in the Hollywood Hills.  (Disclaimer:  RobertWestfield.com does not encourage drinking and swimming…please drink and swim responsibly…try to keep it to the shallow end.)  The house was a very chic glass building from the 1950’s, completely renovated and wired with a sophisticated video and sound system, which would explain why, despite the jet lag, I stayed up until 1 or 2 with my host, Rob, watching clips from youtube, a Sondheim celebration at Carnegie Hall, and crappy old VHS recordings of great performers interviewed by Seth Rudetsky.

The next day we went for a drive, which is mandatory in LA (if you go eight hours without driving a car, you can get a ticket).  But Rob has a convertible so it was a joy ride and we zipped around on a tour of Hollywood, grabbing breakfast at Mel’s and visiting a couple of bookstores.  The first was Book Soup, one of the great independent stores in LA and one that should definitely be stocking my book.  They didn’t have a single copy.  Sad.  However, our next stop was at the Barnes and Noble at the Grove, which had an entire table covered with stacks of Suspension--and only Suspension--directly inside the front door.  That made me happier.

Rob dropped me off…and I was back living among the peasants.  My brother and sister-in-law are renting a perfectly lovely three-bedroom with a front AND back lawn just south of the Santa Monica airport, but come on:  did you see those pool pictures?!  Our first stop was to visit with Jennifer Courtney…a brilliant and beautiful actress friend who moved out to LA a few years ago and is now married to Guy Stevenson (a new writer for MAD TV) and has two wonderful kids—McCabe and Atticus.  We had a great time, laughing and eating, completely unaware that almost all pictured below would fall victim to a stomach flu.  Oh, there were clues--Atticus having to be changed four times was probably the most obvious--but we were not expecting the epidemic that would follow. 

That night, my brother, Brian, his wife, Leslie, and I took in the 8pm performance of the Groundlings in which Jennifer's sister, Stephanie, the other brilliant, beautiful and delirious Courtney sister flaunts her talents.  Afterward, Stephanie and I posed for the picture below.  Neither of us knew what had already entered our systems…the illness had yet to strike.  Look how happy we were…we planned on seeing each other at my reading on Tuesday...but those plans were about to collapse...(cue ominous music).

TO BE CONTINUED......IN THE NEXT ENTRY...IN WHICH THE STOMACH FLU STRIKES...AND LESS PICTURES ARE TAKEN.

LOS ANGELES PART TWO--SUNDAY AND MONDAY

My brother drove me around to bookstores where I signed copies.  The employees were very kind and enthusiastic...except for one bitter jackass in a store that didn't have my book, but I can' t blame him--he had just gotten off the phone with a lady who was trying to find Cliff Notes for all the books her book club was reading...and these were books that would not have Cliff Notes.  My brother and I had difficulty finding his jeep in one of the crowded parking garages in Santa Monica.  We checked out different floors--even though we KNEW it was 4--until we realized we had the wrong garage entirely.  That explained it.  (Let the record show I've never misplaced my subway train.)

Below are two other funny ladies I visited.  One is Polly who lives in Venice and who moved to LA without a driver's license.  Failing the test several times, it took her eight months before she was driving.  She took the bus!!!  For one audition, she spent five hours commuting.  After another, she sat on the bench at the bus stop directly in front of the window of the audition room.  She got a call back.  (But then she had to take the bus again.)  Virginia Louise Smith is my most recent friend to leave NY for LA, and we had a kind of Annie Hall lunch--squinting our eyes in the bright LA light.  Afterwards, we drove (she was always my subway/taxi share) to her house.

Virginia (as we tried to cross an intersection):  "They never seem to stop for you here.  So you just have to take a breath and hope they don't kill you.  Here we go." 

What should interest readers is that Charlie Huston, the great noir writer, whose bio still states that he lives in New York City with the actress, Virginia Louise Smith, does not in fact live in New York City.  They now live in the pink/orange bungalow pictured below.  A pink/orange bungalow in Hollywood!!!!!!  I kid you not.

Earlier Monday morning, I suddenly felt extremely dizzy.  Then sick.  I made it through lunch feeling stable but then relapsed when we reached my brother's house.  Was I nervous about the reading the next night?  I didn't think so.  I was confident of a respectable turnout--I had several of my most supportive friends and family showing up.  Hm.  Maybe I was feeling stress about the entire tour, all of the events, about the success of the book?  No, I didn't think so.  I was receiving daily doses of encouragement.  I wondered what it could be.  A stomach flu didn't occur to me, even though the smell of food was a bit nauseating.

My sister-in-law, a superlative hostess, was preparing fresh salmon caught on her last business trip to Alaska.  My cousin, Michael, and his wife, Melissa, two of my favorite people, were driving up from San Diego.  Monday was going to be a family night with a ping pong tournament, wine and champagne, grilled fish, and conversation around the fire pit in the backyard.  But I was not feeling up for it.  Brian and I walked (I didn't want to get another car) to a convenience store, but they didn't have anything helpful.  I bought an Alka Selzer packet.  No choice but to drive.  Michael took me to Whole Foods and I bought up the pharmacy.  Back at home I consumed drops, juices, powders and pills and after a delicious dinner (I was able to eat most of it), I left my family around the fire pit and crawled into bed, hoping to sleep for twelve hours and wondering if I would ever be healthy again.

TO BE CONTINUED...

LOS ANGELES PART THREE--TUESDAY

I wasn't fully recovered when I woke up, but I also didn't want to sit home all day, thinking about the reading and feeling sorry for myself.  So I joined my entourage for breakfast and at the last minute decided to go on the bike ride between Santa Monica and Venice.  What a perfect thing to do on the day of a reading.

The Grove is a relatively new outdoor mall adjacent to the old Farmer's Market...there's a fountain, a trolley (why, I don't know, since the complex can be walked rather easily), a large movie theater and a plethora of stores.

The reading was full--my friends in LA came through.  The event staff had to bring out additional seating, which was gratifying to watch.

Finally, I'm going to have to ask my web designer how to post a video on the site.  If it's not possible, I'll try to create a link, because I was a victim of a big surprise.  There was a crazy woman sitting in the back of the audience--a giant straw hat, oversized sunglasses, and wild blond/gray hair.  At the end of the q&a, she shouted something in a thick Russian accent.  I assumed she was my first heckler and made a comment under my breath.  (I deal with lunatics while leading tours in NYC all the time, but here I was stuck in a store in front of an audience.)  Someone repeated her question, which was valid and so I answered.  Below are photos of people in line.  You can't miss her...she's in the back, hiding.  The crazy woman (whom I slandered seconds before she popped out from behind a corner and tossed me a copy to sign) turned out to be my Aunt Susan in disguise.  She's been mentioned in earlier blogs.  She had flown cross country earlier that day.  Besides Melisssa, her daughter-in-law who was taking the pictures and video, no one knew...not Robert, not Brian or Leslie, not her son, Michael.  If I do post the video, I'm happy to say I'll have to censor only one word that shot out of my mouth early on.

And one last photo with Brooke Barnes the Magnificent who brought TEN of her friends to the reading.  She rocks!!

FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE LA VISIT

LAX.

7:35am.

An outraged Frenchman (with a thick Inspector Clousseau accent) yelling at a young Starbucks barista:  “You are going to charge me for that foam?  Are you out of your mind?”  A line, I fear, I’ll be repeating for the rest of the tour. 

STOPS TWO AND THREE

I always love visiting San Francisco, even though I've only been there during August ("the coldest winter I ever spent was my summer in San Francisco").  I read at Books, Inc. on Market Street, above left.  By the way, the woman in the picture above right is not giving me the finger--she's about to wave to the camera.  (They all did actually.)  I was warned that my San Francisco reading would have the smallest audience.  Though the city is one of the most well-read in the country, it's difficult to get people to a reading, especially for an east-coast author whose book has only been out for three weeks.  I'd heard horror stories of readings for only 3 or 5 people, but we had 20, which filled the reading area, and we sold most of the stock, much of it to my new friend, Winnie, who bought a dozen copies.  I sat on a stool--sans podium and microphone--and felt very relaxed, thanks in part to the beautiful walks up and down the hills and a couple hours spent that afternoon at the Kabuki Springs Spa in Japan Town.

The inevitable question asked repeatedly on my tour:  Why Reno?  Well, for some reason, in the ten years I've been giving tours of New York City, I've led two or three groups from Reno each and every spring, and since Reno is a quick hop from San Francisco, I decided to spend a weekend and give a reading at the amazing independent bookstore I'd heard so much about over the decade.  Many of the people to whom I give tours invite me to visit them and offer to take me around their cities, towns or farms.  It was nice to take some up on their offer.  

Swope, Lou Mendive, and Sparks have been names on my itineraries for so long, I wanted to make sure these places actually existed, so we drove to all three schools on a fact-finding mission.  Afterwards, we took a scenic drive up into the mountains to see Lake Tahoe.  I love the water, but with the exception of an afternoon on the Jersey Shore in late July, I haven't had a chance to enjoy much of it this summer, so we made sure to get our feet wet before we had to turn around and drive back to Reno for the afternoon reading.  Let the record show that Andrea DeMichieli was an AMAZING tour guide--I give her a 5 out of 5--she chose great places for food, remembered bathroom breaks, and was able to fit in everything that I requested before returning to the apartment in time for me to shower and change for the reading. 

It was fun--and a bit strange--to look out on my audience that afternoon.  Usually we're on a bus; I'm holding a mike and they're wearing I HEART NY t-shirts.  I changed my usual reading at the last minute, deciding to replace half of a scene with a few paragraphs late in the novel in which Reno is explicity mentioned and which includes a description of the Brooklyn Bridge.  It seemed fitting.  After this, we headed over to Mi Casa for drinks and food...again, I'm usually signing a voucher for the group at the end of a meal, but not here.   Below are teachers/tourists/friends from Lou Mendive, Swope, and Sparks.

And then what happened?  Well, there was red wine back at Lino and Andrea's and then a trip to the Atlantis where although I hit my numbers 1 and 26 on two separate occasions, I lost twenty bucks at roulette.  Hours of blackjack followed...I picked it up fairly quickly and only once did my fellow gamblers yell at me.  Apparently, I should have stayed at 16 because the dealer had a 6, which means she would have busted and everyone would have made money, but I took a card and busted and she hit 21 or something...I really don't know.  What I do know is that at around 3:30, Andrea and I were trying to break into her apartment, because Lino was in a deep sleep and wouldn't open the door.  While trying to scale the wall to access their back door, the sprinklers began spraying (of course).  After they stopped, I gave Andrea a boost over the wall.  Unfortunately, the back door was locked as well.  Eventually, Lino did hear the phone and the bell and the knocks and the laughter, and opened the door.  Andrea still keeps her five ranking as a tour guide, but let the record show that never on any of my tours over the past ten years did I have to break into a hotel at 4 in the morning.  Let the record also show that I came out of those casinos $25 ahead...which was lost playing slots at the airport while waiting to board my plane for Seattle.

STOP FOUR--SEATTLE

Seattle is one of my favorite cities, home to some of my closest friends, so when the reading there fell through and the suggestion was made to "bag Seattle," my answer was a simple no.  It was too late to secure another bookstore, so I put out an email to my friends in hopes of finding an alternative space--a theater, cafe or bar.  They came through with a convenient gallery space we were able to fill with friends, clients and several former tourists who came from as far as Centralia, south of Olympia.  The reading was very relaxed and was followed by a stimulating q&a.  By this reading, a larger percentage of the audience had already read the book, so the first question of the evening began with, "Now Chapter Six..."  I had to interrupt, since Chapter Six is where Suspension takes a major turn.  After the official q&a, I held an informal one, out of earshot of people who didn't know the novel yet.

Here are some pictures from Tuesday, the 29th.  It just occurred to me that on the day of each of my readings, I partook of some water recreation.  (My friend, Denise, is saying, "Of course, you're Pisces."  My answer:  "It's also summertime.")  I swam at my gym before the reading in NY, rode along the beach in Santa Monica and Venice before the reading in LA, spent a couple of hours in the Kabuki Springs Spa before the reading in San Francisco, stood in Lake Tahoe before the reading in Reno, and went to swim class with the four Heller kids before the reading in Seattle.

Three funny bits.

1)  During my reading, a man walked in off the street and asked the owner if he could go to the bathroom.  The owner said no problem, and the man proceeded to walk brazenly to the front of the audience, cross behind me (as I was reading, mind you) and enter the bathroom.  You can see part of the door above left, so it wasn't the most unobtrusive potty break.  I continued to read with only a slight pause, but I had to stop again after he flushed, came out, crossed behind me and left the gallery to go on his merry way.  (You know, in New York, when you need to use the restroom, you seek out a Starbucks, and you can't tell me there are no Starbucks in Seattle!)

2)  Before I left for the tour, my editor, John Williams, told me how impressed he was by the number of people I knew--the various circles in the city and all of the different groups across the country to whom I've given tours.  I was telling this to my friend, Wayne, on my first day in Seattle as we were walking to lunch.  As soon as we entered May, a Thai restaurant on 45th Avenue, I was stunned to recognize the waiter, Sal, whom I met on Cape Cod the summer I was writing my novel.  That evening, when Wayne told our friend, Tom, this story, Tom reminded me that years ago, on another visit to Seattle, I walked into a restaurant with him on Capitol Hill and began immediately talking to a waiter named Marcel, whom I knew (again from Cape Cod).  Our friend, Katy, said, "I've been living here for eight years and I never run into anyone I know."  That's gratifying...now I just need everyone I know to buy a copy of Suspension.

3)  "What happens on pages 183-186?"  That was a question asked of me by the woman in black in the picture above right.  It turns out her copy of Suspension was missing those pages...and these aren't pages you want missing.  Fortunately, she had gotten her book from a batch my friends had bought, and all of the other copies were intact.  Apparently, these things happen, and the only reason I was hearing about it was because it was my book.  It's not as if Gabriel Garcia Marquez would call me up and say, "Hey, Robert, I just found out one of my books sold at a Borders in Tampa was missing four pages."  Since none of my other readers have mentioned missing pages, I'll rest easy that it's an isolated incident. 

I spent the next day relaxing, enjoying Seattle, and hanging out with the Heller kids--8, 6, 4, and 2--visiting the Children's Museum and the amusement park at the Seattle Center, convincing the oldest to take her first ferris wheel ride and taking pictures of each of them with their pizza.

Below left, Bailey is preparing his audition for his pre-school's production of Sunset Boulevard.  The picture on the right was taken at the spectacular new Seattle Public Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas.  I wanted to see my book in a library, but there were none there--the good news is that all of the copies were checked out, with ten people on the waiting list.  I hope one day to give a reading in the beautiful auditorium--no one at the Seattle Public Library has ever walked upstage of the writer to urinate behind the curtain.  That might even be their motto.

Between the amusement park and the library, I also visited bookstores and signed stock, saving Elliott Bay Book Company, one of my favorite stores in the world, for last.  Afterwards, I ate a great lunch at Grand Central and passed out my card to the cashier who was looking for a good book to read.  She was so excited that I promised to mention her in my blog, so, Olivia from Grand Central in Seattle:  thanks for the delicious lunch and brightening a cloudy day!

The last morning of my west coast book tour.  The car is waiting to take me to the airport, but one last picture...