I have so much to tell you, honestly, what with retrieving our Birdy from her study abroad and barfing all over Valencia taking ill and all of us getting covid on the way home and this glorious green world of spring perfumed with lilacs and lilies of the valley and also the luscious cats and this luscious cake and so many things. BUT! I am here really to hawk my book, which comes out in a month. I am here to say this, more specifically: Will you please preorder it? You can do that at your local bookshop or at bookshop.org or, obvs (and less desirably), Amazon. Or request it from your library! I will be so grateful! I am already.
I know that every author natters on beggingly about this, but preorders are important because they cue booksellers and publishers about how well a book is likely to do, and then this is kind of a spiral up (or, sob, down) situation: the more a book seems like it’s going to sell, the more resources everyone puts into selling it. (And conversely, the less, the fewer, etc.) Unrelated: if you’d like a dorky little signed bookplate, please just send me your address and I’d be so happy to pop one in the mail!
Okay, one more minute of the hard sell: My publicist just sent me this Sandwich recommendation from bookseller Chris Lee at Boswell’s in Milwaukee, and I love it SO MUCH that I’m sharing it here.
Angry, heartbroken, joyous, scarred, melancholic, rueful, bursting with rage and so, so, so full of love. If any narrator has ever reached down their own throat and pulled themselves inside out onto the page, then surely Catherine Newman’s Rocky. On a week’s vacation to their favorite cramped and humble Cape Cod rental cottage, Rocky and her family clog toilets and spill secrets. Salt water clarifies, and Newman captures exactly how a simple, good, old-fashioned beach trip can recalibrate the rest of your life. Sharply written, with a piercing, observant eye, this is a beautiful book.
And here’s a little preview of the book, just for you: the prologue and the first chapter, still in manuscript form.
Dontcha want to read the rest? Kind of? (Don’t tell me if you don’t.)
And here are some dates I’m going to be out and about, at so many amazing book shops and in conversation with so many beautiful friends and idols—all because everybody is working round the clock to make this happen for me. Please come! I’ll be delighted to see you, even though I’ll be so awkward and extra that you’ll wonder after if you should maybe get a small restraining order.
Thank you for indulging me, my lovelies! xo
You are about as far north and east of North Carolina as one can get and still be in the US. Oh wait, you also went to the UK to get far away from me! But just in case: Durham NC The Regulator or Letters, Chapel Hill NC Flyleaf or Epilogue, Morganton NC Thornwell, Asheville NC Malaprop, or Cape Fear NC Papercut.
Thank you for the excerpt. Will order! Come to DC (or suburban Maryland) please! Happy to suggest a bookstore or two.