Miami Book Fair 2008

Far from Miami?

Florida Book Review is live-blogging from Miami Book Fair International. Read our coverage below.

Sunday, Nov.16., 7:30 PM

In 1988 when the Miami Book Fair was five years old, I was ten. I wrote a fable in my third grade class at Biscayne Elementary and was chosen to read it live at the book fair. It was one of the proudest moments of my childhood, standing in that big room with what seemed hundreds of people, sharing my story. I never thought then that I would be back 20 years later, reading again.
Esther Martinez

Sunday, Nov. 16, 7:01PM

      Wow, glad I stopped to listen. But of course there's no chance now that I'll be able to reproduce everything they talked about. Englander was visibly nervous - no, audibly, he sounded like a teenager whose voice was about to crack - but still obviously intelligent. He gives you hope that you, also, might be able to ask Salman   Rushdie intelligent questions, even though you would be very nervous.
       Rushdie himself was expansive and magisterial. His latest is The Enchantress of Florence, which takes place in 16th century Europe and India. He talks a lot about his feelings for his characters, a lot about how he has turned his research into a novel. "I knew I didn't want to write an encyclopedic novel," he says. "I tacked a note to my wall that read: 'Only if it serves the story.'" He's obviously still very interested in his material - took pleasure in talking about what he has learned. I also seem to remember him dissing F.R. Leavis and the Great Tradition. Not sure how Englander elicited that one.
       He fields some audience questions afterwards, which take a turn towards the political. He ends up saying: "I have great reason to be pissed off with Muslims. But not all Muslims. Only the ones that tried to kill me."
    Englander thanks Rushdie, thanks all of us for coming, and that's a wrap. I'm going to post this sucker before the battery on my laptop runs out. Goodbye, Book Fair.

            Jamie May

Sunday, Nov. 16, 6:00 PM

       This is it. The end of the fair. I'm sitting in a totally full Chapman auditorium, waiting to hear Salman Rushdie talk with Nathan Englander. First, we listen to Mitchell Kaplan thank the Center for the Literary Arts and its director, Alina Interián. He then introduces Pen America's representative, Caro Llewelyn, who prepares us for Rushdie and Englander.
       Stopping now so I can listen. Will resume shortly.
            Jamie May

Sunday, Nov. 16, 3:30 PM

      Where can you watch all the proceedings from Chapman without waiting in line and fighting the crowd? Score some free food and drink? Enjoy air conditioning as needed? Even receive a friendly greeting each time you cross the threshold? At the Friends of the Book Fair VIP Tent, of course (between the food court and yellow entrance).
      If you really appreciate the Book Fair, you should become a friend ($75 donation, $25 for students). Gets you free admission, seats up front, advance tix for popular events, souvenir tote bag, and a tasteful laminated badge.
      Then while you’re at it, make it $175 and you’re a “Writer” level Friend of the Fair, behind the velvet ropes and in the VIP tent, your port in the Street Fair storm. It’s worth it not just for the convenience and amenities, but for the satisfaction of helping the cause.
            Bob Morison

Sunday, Nov. 16, 2:00 PM

      Junot Diaz, Amitav Ghosh, and Austin C. Clarke. Diaz isn't here to start with, but the presenter promises that he'll show up. Didn't catch the presenter's name. He says something about these authors not being born in super-power nations - something about them being like Caliban but knowing more than how to curse. Graceful! But maybe a little clichéd.
      Clarke just starts reading without any preamble. Even with the mic he's quiet, with an Islands accent, a little hard to hear all the way in the back where I'm sitting. "Did I say garbage?" he reads. "I meant shit." He's describing someone rooting through his garbage. I wish I could follow him. "Blam! Blam! Blam!" Now he's imagining stealing a cop's gun and shooting him with it.
       They've turned the mic up. Hopefully we'll be able to hear Ghosh a little better.
Yes, we can. He's reading from his novel Sea of Poppies, set in 1838 with the British opium trade as its backdrop. The British grew and processed opium in India, he notes, then sold it in China. There's a neat passage about the "stupefied" monkeys that live outside the opium factory, who only climb down from their trees to lap at the "effluence" in the factory's sewers. The passage he reads moves from a kind of history-book exposition into an opium dream, as his protagonist moves deeper and deeper into the opium factory.
       The presenter compliments Diaz on the success of his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, after the success of his story collection Drown. "Some masters of the short story were mediocre novelists, like Eudora Welty or John Cheever," says the presenter. Is that necessary? Is Junot Diaz really a better novelist that Eudora Welty? Isn't it too early in his career to say?
       Diaz talks for a long time. Shouts out NJ (I clap. Go Jerze!), Dominicans, and immigrants. Finally he reads. I think he published this in the New Yorker last year. About a mother, a daughter, boobs. Then it turns out to be about breast cancer.
I take off without hearing the questions from the audience to go to Gulf Stream reading.

Jamie May

Sunday, Nov. 16, 1:52 PM

    From our Blogging Gator:
    Who knew I could come to such an enormous event such as this and could find myself standing behind Scott Simon, talking about coffee? Dave O'Grorman
    I thought Lip Service was great. Manuel Martinez
    We love the Book Fair! We haven't bought any books yet but I'm going to buy a horse-riding book and it's gonna be my favorite. Nina, 7 years old
    The show in the "What's Up Doc?" tent was good. I learned about germs and body parts and tooth brushing. Emma, 7 years old

Sunday, Nov. 16, 1:45 PM

Overheard on the steps up to building 1 where people were gathered enjoying the fair’s gastronomical delights— “Je veux acheter des livres pour mes amis.” A young boy said to his dad in French, “I want to buy books for my friends.” Music to my ears!
—Esther Martinez

Sunday, Nov. 16, 1:45 PM

      Now Rushdie is talking to the people at the "Last Name A-I" desk. Maybe I am learning something new.
      Now he's walked out again. He's wearing stylish jeans with raggedy cuffs.
Am I a total wimp for not having pursued him into the Hospitality Suite? What else is a press pass for?
       I curse myself for my timidity.
            Jamie May

Sunday, Nov. 16, 1:32 PM

      Holy crap! I'm outside the Author's Hospitality Suite using their Wi-fi, and Salman Rushdie has just walked by. He was on his cell-phone. "Hi, this is Salman," he said. "I'm just walking into the Author's Hospitality Suite."
       I'm now sort of watching him talk with the organizers inside. He's getting his identification badge. There are two places for them to get badges, "Last Name A-I" and "Last Name J-Z." He's at the J-Z line.
     Hmmmm, I get the feeling that I'm not really learning anything new about Salman Rushdie from this experience. Yes, his first name is Salman. Yes, his last name begins with R. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled. Now a small crowd has gathered and he's posing for pictures.

Jamie May

International Food Court at the Book Fair.

In center photo, author John Dufresne contemplates his choices.

(photos, Esther Martinez)

Sunday, Nov. 16, 1:18 PM

    I stopped at the booth for Revista Hispano Cubana to chat with some fellow Cubans about Wendy Guerra’s appearance at the fair. I love that everywhere you turn, everyone is willing (and wanting) to talk about books! There I met Damaso Rodriguez, a reporter for Radio Mambi, a Miami-based radio station which broadcasts to Cuba.
    Rodriguez has been covering the fair for the past 12 years and said when he first started, there were a handful of booths and a lecture or two.   Book Fair, you’ve come a long way, baby!
        —Esther Martinez

Sunday, Nov. 16, 12:52 PM

    Tremenda Charla!
    If you don’t understand what that means, you probably missed the panel discussion entitled El Futuro es Hoy (The Future is Now), one of the many readings and discussions at the book fair conducted entirely en español.
    The seven member panel was hand-picked from among the Generación Bogotá 39—a group of artists considered the 39 most influential Latin American writers under the age of 39. It included Cuban poet, Wendy Guerra; Brazilian novelist, Adriana Lisboa; Argentine fiction writer, Andres Neuman; Guatemalan novelist, Eduardo Halfon; Mexican poet and story-teller, Guadalupe Nettel; Peruvian writer, Ivan Thays; and Dominican-born Junot Diaz, someone whose name you may have heard in association with a long list of literary prizes, not the least of which was the Pulitzer, awarded to him this past summer for his novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
    Diaz caused a sensation; the crowd erupted into applause as he entered the room.
    The discussion was moderated by Enrique Cordoba, a radio host and writer for El Nuevo Herald. Considering the large panel, introductions were long-winded. Cordoba called the panelists the “new groundbreakers of the Spanish language,” and posed only one question: Talk to us about your art and what it means to be a Latin American writer today.
    Diaz answered first, saying that the ugliest thing in the world is to talk too much about art. “It’s like talking about merengue or bachata,” he said (referring to Dominican dances), it’s better to just dance them.” Diaz said writers can sometimes be disowned by their homelands because they “show the world their countries’ dirty asses.” Diaz’s difficulty navigating his dual identity was obvious throughout, both in what he said and how he said it; his Spanish accent is marked by a strong Anglo diphthong and he often struggled with the right words in Spanish, many times reverting to English.
    Eduardo Halfon, born in Guatemala but raised in Broward County, spent much of his young life studying engineering and said he “fell into literature.” As a kid, he used to practice different ways to dress himself, trying to find which was the most economical—shirt first? Pants? “This may sound funny,” he said, but if I found the quickest way to dress, I could sleep longer.” Later, Halfon says he discovered that literature also has structures and systems. He said, “I was born in Spanish. English is my stepmother tongue. Those two women fight all the time. But for me writing in Spanish, literature is a return to innocence.” His newest book, El Boxeador Polaco (The Polish Boxer) is part fact, part fiction. In the collection of shorts, the writer attempts to recreate the day in Auschwitz when his grandfather’s life was saved by a Polish boxer.
    Next in line was Adriana Lisboa who spoke very softly (and briefly) about her 2001 book, Symphony in White, scheduled for American release in 2009. She expanded on Diaz’s theme of cultural mestizaje, stating that as a writer, she is neither the Brazilian woman she was when she lived in Rio, nor the American woman from Denver she is today. She grounds her writing in this intermediary existence, calling cultural middle-ground “a very rich place.”
    Guadalupe Nettel found her identity as a little girl reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez and hopes that readers can have that same soul-to-soul connection with her writing. Her collection, Petalos y Otras Historias Incomodas (Petals and Other Uncomfortable Stories), focuses on seemingly eccentric characters which Nettel views as normal. “My characters are not freaks,” she said. “We all have manias, ticks, obsessions. Our distinguishing characteristics are the very things that make us beautiful.”
    Andres Neuman said he had no choice but to write. “It’s the only thing I did that ever turned out ok.” The barely five-foot tall, buck-and-a-quarter writer wanted to be a professional athlete. “I have a portentous figure,” he joked. He also “failed with great success” at music. Finally, he began copying stories he liked, changing the beginnings and endings. He spoke about growing up in Spain and the strange irony of “a foreignness that develops within your own tongue.” His Spanish friends detect his Argentine accent; his Argentinian friends call out his Gallego slur. “I am a double-foreigner,” he said. “I don’t see this as a problem, but rather as a vital condition from which I write.”
    Ivan Thays’s situation is quite interesting. He is fair skinned with light eyes and hair and said that as a native of Peru where 98% of the population is indigenous, it has been a struggle for him to prove that someone who looks like him might also have something to say. He talked at length about his failed marriage and a son he said had seemed to him not like a son, but rather like an asteroid that had landed in his apartment and of which he wanted no part. But all of this changed one day when Thays approached his screaming son’s crib and the baby smiled at him. “No one had ever smiled just because I existed,” he said. When his wife left him shortly after and took his son with her, Thays’s writing turned to grief. He wrote a book about an abducted child, aptly titled Lindbergh.   He later wrote another about two men who had lost their families—one with amnesia, and one who wished he had it.
    The last panelist was the dark and elusive, Wendy Guerra. She wore her jet black hair in a mod cut and donned a little black dress with a black scarf draped across her chest. Guerra is rightfully elusive. She is a Cuban writer writing from the inside. She lives in her native Havana and has published a number of award winning novels and collections of poems. Some of her books have been published abroad but she refused to answer the question about whether any of her books are actually published in Cuba. She said her writing attempts to ask questions of her parents’ generation that they failed to ask her grandparents’ about a situation she encountered ready-made. It was a very emotional experience for Guerra whose eyes swelled with tears several times and who ultimately obscured them in enormous black sunglasses. When asked how she felt being able to attend the book fair when so many others have been silenced, she said, her voice cracking slightly, “someone had to take the first step.”
    Perhaps it was Thays who best summed up the panel’s theme. “If the generation of writers up here were Carlos Fuentes’s or Garcia Marquez’s, the discussion might be about the realities of their respective countries or perhaps their politics. We speak about our personal realities. We realize they are the only true perspectives.”

        —Esther Martinez

Sunday, Nov.16, 12:31 PM

      George Hamilton says that writing his memoir, Don’t Mind If I Do, let him tell his story without having to live up to the public perceptions of George Hamilton. That’s a bit disingenuous, since he’s led a very public and publicized life, can elaborate very entertainingly on all those public perceptions, and, of course, still sports his iconic tan. He is, after all, George Hamilton. Veteran of nearly 50 films, an early one of whichWhere the Boys Arehelped put South Florida on the map. Boyfriend who had to pick up his date at the White House. Last of the contract players, coworker of the big names in Hollywood, bosom buddy of Liz Taylor. Recently a determined and sentimental favorite on Dancing with the Stars.
      The early Sunday draw to Chapman, he pulled in a crowd. Said only a few words of introduction to his book and then said he was happy to answer any and all questions. In the random assortment of stories that ensued, we learned that he was descended from the unlikely marriage of a small town’s doctor and its chief Christian Scientist. How he learned the social value of a tan at Palm Beach High. How his mother, known for discarding husbands, in middle age took her sons on a cross-country driving trip in search of a new one from among her many past acquaintances—alas, “none lived up to her memory.” How Robert Mitchum instructed him in Irish Whiskey and Hollywood punctuality: “Don’t get up early—just stay up late.” That Hollywood is happy to indulge your vice of choice—“Mine was cashmere.” How perilous it can be to try to maintain a tan in London.
      Did we get beneath the public perceptions? He dodged only a question or two, and he certainly seems to enjoy recounting his life’s adventures and absurdities. He was charming, articulate, funny, self-deprecating, debonair, impeccably dressed. But you already knew that. He is, after all, George Hamilton.
            Bob Morison

Sunday, Nov. 15, 11:28 AM

A guy just stopped by the Gulf Stream Magazine table and paged through the copies on display. After I gave him my spiel about fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, he said, "Oh, well, I guess that's not quite my area of expertise. I'm an oceanographer. Different Gulf Stream."

Jamie May

Sunday, Nov.16, 1:54 AM

Ugh. We crashed the author party at the Raleigh down on Collins, then went by Brian Antoni's party. I was underdressed at the first and under-attractive at the second. The Raleigh was a success because there was an open bar and I held the door for Russell Banks on my way out. Antoni's party was a disappointment because someone told me there'd be transvestites there (Was that Lynne?) but there were none.
Now I have to get up tomorrow morning and open the Gulf Stream booth. Ugh.

Jamie May

Gorgeous weather for book fair browsing.

Children's Alley

Dennis Lehane signs The Given Day.

Enrique Cordoba, Wendy Guerra, Adriana Lisboa, Andres Neuman, Eduardo Halfon, Guadalupe Nettel, Junot Diaz, Ivan Thays

Andrea Askewitz, Lip Service director

Part of Lip Service's Greatest Hits, Joe Clifford, reads.

Lip Service audience listens in the Write Out Loud tent

Lehane, Clifford photos, Lynne Barrett. All others, Esther Martinez.

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