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It’s not what you think, probably. But it’s still harrowing, all these years later, for me to recall one near-disaster that took place while I was researching the book. It comes to you courtesy of an interview published in the Accidental Extremist, a website created by my friend Christian DeBenedetti, the pleasantly twisted genius who created this site about other people’s travel-related calamities. Schadenfraude, the Rand McNally version. It’s good fun.
While you’re there, click on the June and July archives. The former includes an exceprt from my friend Kalee Thompson’s book Deadliest Sea, which came out in June and is doing very well; it’s a dramatic open-ocean rescue story I’ve mentioned previously. The latter features an entertaining-sounding book called The Lunatic Express.
On an entirely different note: The book continues to get reviewed, and not just by people I’ll never meet on Amazon. This review, in Fine Books & Collections, captures the whole thing nicely. I appreciate how the reviewier points out that I don’t hammer anyone over the head with morality judgments in the book. One of the things I enjoy doing as a writer (and editor) is finding characters who have good qualities who maybe do some not-so-great things, and letting people wrestle with them in their heads after reading. Here the writer accurately notes that I leave readers “to make their own conclusions from the material he presents.”
A bit late reporting this, but there was some great coverage of Lost Rights in North Carolina. Here are a couple of examples, one from the Raleigh News & Observer, and another from the Fayetteville Observer. (Nice line: “Nearly every page of Howard’s story will leave you with eyebrows raised or saying ‘wow.’”).
For people who have asked about future Lost Rights road trip events: There are a few additional events lined up—including two here in the Lehigh Valley, at the Nazareth Library (October 5, 6:30 p.m.) and the estimable Moravian Bookshop (September 11, TBA). Connecticut friends, watch the schedule; we’re working on getting a couple morelined up there in October, including one in the library of my youth.
Finally, just have to say this: Many fans will hold out hope for the Red Sox until they are mathematically eliminated in September, but Kevin Youkilis’s season-ending muscle tear is the back-breaker. The Sox had a great run with many key players broken and bloodied, but that man is the pillar they are built on, the ultimate blood-and-guts leader. I’ll be a Rays fan in the playoffs, because it’s amazing how much they do with so little, all while playing in a building that you could call a ballpark only in the sense that you can call a doghouse real estate.
