Pub Date: a tradition

The more things change, etc etc

Today my 30th book is being published in the U.S.; it will be out in the UK on August 14. When I was young and had yet to publish a book, I thought touring would be the best part and, in fact, my first book party was amazing. Friends flew to Baltimore from Texas and Minnesota. My newspaper colleagues wrote a blues song in honor of the book, Baltimore Blues, with my friend Arthur Hirsch singing the refrain: “Laura Lippman — please don’t write a book about me.” One could argue that it’s been all downhill from there. ¹

I used to share an excerpt about publication day from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird about the world’s overwhelming indifference to one’s pub date, but that’s one thing that social media has made better: Lots of people check in. You get to take a little victory lap. You can post your order link one more time, even if the world is kind of a shit show.

This is my 28th year as a published writer and I often feel like Tom Grunick in Broadcast News. (Tom: What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams? Aaron: Keep it to yourself.) I’m going to break Aaron’s rule and share a few of my best memories from touring. Also some of the worst!

2000: My first real tour after four books and three years of “self-touring.” At the end of my event in Thousand Oaks, CA, I went into the bathroom and changed into a ballgown for the Emmys, which I was attending with someone I had just begun dating. He won two Emmys that night, which meant I spent more time with seat-fillers! But, hey, I was across the aisle from John Stamos.

2001: I was EVISCERATED in a People magazine review. It was so bad that my mother, who didn’t even read People, reacted as if she needed a crisis PR consultant: “What should I say if anyone asks me about it?” Within a week, 9/11 occurred, so no one was talking about my bad review in People. They probably never were. And In a Strange City ended up being named a New York Times notable book.

2003: You know what’s worse than an evisceration? The sorrowful review that totally understands your book’s ambitions and concludes you have fallen short of the mark. I’ll probably be quoting this review on my deathbed: “Laura Lippman may write the Great American novel. Every Secret Thing isn’t it.” But, hey, it was adapted for film by Fran McDormand, whom I got to know well enough that I get to call her Fran! Also, I once made Joel Coen laugh, which rendered my then husband envious, as he was uncharacteristically silent during that dinner.

On the set of Every Secret Thing in 2013

2007: Twelve books in, I made the New York Times bestseller list. I was in Aspen, drinking martinis with a librarian from Dundalk, a true Rocky Mountain high. Better yet, the next day in the airport, a woman asked: “Are you Laura Lippman?” And then she introduced me to her toddler daughter — Tess.²

2009: Got up at 5 a.m. to travel from El Paso to Phoenix where I had two events. I was trying to return to my natural hair color at the time (brunette is so hard to maintain after you start to gray) and I guess I also looked a little tired. (See: “Got up at 5 a.m.”) This resulted in: a) a man writing a plaintive email saying: “You don’t look like your author photo. Do you think that’s fair?” and b) someone online commenting unfavorably about my looks and the librarian from that event defending the commenter. Possibly the only librarian I have ever disliked.

Backstage at Late Night with Craig Ferguson in May 2009

2010: I had an infant, so I left home for only 36 hours, flying to Los Angeles to tape interviews with Craig Ferguson and Tavis Smiley. I wore the only pair of Louboutins I’ve ever owned, but what I always remember were two female producers dropping to their knees to apply tinted moisturizer to my oh-so-pale legs, sort of an aesthetic pit crew. This was my second time on Ferguson’s show, which I did three times overall and of course I had a crazy crush on him. Who wouldn’t?

These cookies took the cake

2015: I was doing an event in Southhampton and JULES FUCKING FEIFFER came through the signing line and gave me a gift for a rave review I had written of his first graphic novel, Kill My Mother — and it was an original drawing by JULES FUCKING FEIFFER. ³

I die

2019: Stephen King reviewed Lady in the Lake for the New York Times Book Review and I was a guest on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, real bucket-list stuff. I stood on a hilltop in Tuscany, Aperol spritz in hand, taking calls from Hollywood suitors — and go figure, the dang thing actually got made with Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram starring.

2000-2022: No touring because of Covid. But CBS Sunday Morning visited me in Baltimore. I knew enough to have my makeup done professionally, but I’m not doing that on the road and there’s no way I can apply fake lashes by myself, so no plaintive emails, please. I yam who I yam.

I have never looked more like Sweet Polly Purebred

2025: Let’s make some memories, folks! Preferably good ones, although the bad ones are funnier. I’ll be doing events in the Baltimore area, Washington D.C., Lewes DE, Newport RI, Brooklyn, and Toledo. Complete schedule here.

1. It hasn’t been all downhill from there.

2. Tess Monaghan is the name of the main character in my P.I. series.

3. I immediately checked with the editor of the NYTBR to ask if I could accept the gift.