The Book Pirate

I’ve never had an author ditch his own book signing before. But that is just what happen on Wednesday evening. Powell’s was hosting James Frey (of Million Little Pieces fame) and Josh Kilmer-Purcell (or I Am Not Myself These Days ). Instead of the typical reading in the Art section of Powells, the event was being held at the Baghdad Theater which I think they may have been forced to rent as a stipulation of hosting Stephenie Meyer the night before. Instead of the 500+ people Meyer attracted, the Frey/Kilmer-Purcell headline only brought in about 30ish people.

The reading started shortly after seven and Josh was reading first. Much to my disappointment, he read the very first few pages of IANMTD and completely neglected his newest book Candy Everybody Wants . Don’t get me wrong, I think IANMTD is a fantastic book and recommend it to nearly anybody who will listen. When he was finished he got off the stage. There was no Q&A, no talking about his new book, the book that is the reason he is in tour. After James finished at 7:30, I expected Josh to maybe sign some books. I am a -huge- fan of IANMTD and would have loved to at least say, Hello. The Powells employee told me that he had already left the building.

When James, baseball cap on his head, stepped up to the stage to read from his book, his head tilted down and read at such a quick pace and monotone voice that I got the feeling that he really didn’t want to be there. That, or he is a poor public speaker. Either way I was having a difficult time staying away as he read from his new book Bright Shiny Morning . From what I did hear the book sounds interesting and has been written for people with short attention spans as it quickly jumps from subject to subject quickly. I haven’t read the book yet and probably wont get around to it till later this summer. For the Q&A, James answered questions and the audience managed to get half-way through the questions before bring up the fact that he was the center of a huge book scandal in 2006 after Oprah selected his first "memoir" for her book club only to later discover it was really a work of fiction.

All in all, I was very let down by this event. Two authors, one I hold in high acclaim and the other James Frey, should have made for an enjoyable evening. But with one author leaving without even the briefest acknowledgment that there were people who came solely to see him and the other giving Ben Stein a run for his money in terms of being a really boring speaker.