Mortification: Writers’ Stories of Their Public Shame Read Online Free Page B

and motoring onward through the rotten weather.
    Here I must backtrack to recall an important clue that I had foolishly overlooked. Months earlier, after agreeing to add the Arkansas event to my book tour, I had been asked in all earnestness if I wanted to be a ‘celebrity’ judge in the town’s famous chili cook-off, which by lucky coincidence would be taking place on the same day of my arrival, in the same shopping strip where the bookstore was located. I had demurred, citing phantom gastroenterological disorders. In retrospect, I should have recognized the chili-tasting invitation as the dark omen it was, and cancelled the gig immediately.
    When I finally found the bookstore, I noticed that it was as quiet as a morgue, and as empty of life. I chose to attribute this to the torrential downpour and prevailing tornado warnings, and not to any lack of enthusiasm for my novels. The proprietress of the store, a lovely and gracious woman, assured me that hordes of loyal readers would descend at the first break in the weather.
    I passed the time – and time passes slowly in Arkansas, I assure you – chatting with the store clerks, one of whom let it slip that I was competing that afternoon not only with the chili-cooking contest but also with the annual college football game between the University of Arkansas Razorbacks and, I believe, the University of Oklahoma Sooners. A casual stroll through the shopping plaza confirmed the dismal fact; everyone seemed to have a bowl of chili and a portable radio tuned to football. A reporter for the local AM station was supposed to interview me during half-time, but evidently he’d gotten so swept up in the game that he forgot.
    So I trudged back to the bookstore and waited patiently for someone, anyone, to walk through the front door. Eventually the owner said I might as well take advantage of the ‘lull’ and sign one of the wooden folding chairs that she had set up for the anticipated throngs. Over the years I’d autographed posters, photos, bumper stickers, even a young woman’s chest, but never had I been asked to put my signature on a piece of cheap patio furniture. The owner explained that it was a popular tradition at her store, and indeed led me to a stack of chairs autographed by visiting authors, the most notable of whom was John Grisham. Naturally I whipped out my Sharpie and signed one with a flourish.
    Eventually the rain tapered off, but nobody ever showed up to hear me read. So I didn’t; I sat. As the final excruciating minutes ticked down, I personalized a copy of my novel for each of the store clerks (who would have rather gone that day to the football game), and also for one or two of the store owner’s relatives (who were kind enough to stop by and pretend to be customers).
    As my freshly autographed chair was unceremoniously folded away with the others, the store owner said she felt terrible about the ‘low turnout’, and professed to be mystified. I declined with heroic politesse when she offered a hot cup of homemade chili for my journey back to the Memphis airport.

‘If you have any shame, forbear to pluck the beard of a dead lion.’ Martial,
Epigrams
Geoff Dyer
    Dear Robin,
    I hear that you are publishing an anthology of pieces on the theme of literary mortification. Well, I have to say that I was very disappointed – mortified actually – not to be asked, especially when I heard the names of some of the writers you
did
ask (most of them friends of yours, I imagine, or people you publish). Some people have short memories, evidently. No doubt you have forgotten that I once specifically asked my agent to offer the manuscript of one of my novels to you even though she wanted to send it to a more established ‘literary’ imprint (I think you were at Cape at the time). Anyway, you have come a long way since then and have probably forgotten this and, frankly, I’d forgotten all about it too until I heard of this anthology and decided I’d drop you a