Mireille laughed merrily.
“Now,” she purred, “enough of my half-ass psychology. Let’s get back to YOU. And your new bestsellerGold Digger. When can I see pages?”
As she watched William now, Sam thought it was entirely possible that Mireille was correct, agents being the savvy scholars of human nature they were. They had to be, not only to negotiate deals but to manage their writers’ significant neuroses. Itwascurious that William was so versatile. Most writers, Sam included, wrote variations on a theme. Sam’s books would always be about love and trauma, no matter what the context. It was a sort of writer DNA forged by personality and circumstance, as particular as a thumbprint and as impervious to change.
But this was not true, apparently, of William Corwyn.
Sam wondered if perhaps she was a bit jealous. If she could write something entirely different, would she be as successful as he was? Would her books feel less stale? Would her readership revitalize? And how did one evendothis, changing genres with every novel? Again Sam thought: Whowasthis guy?
As if he’d caught the question, William glanced at Sam. His brows rose over hishorn-rims; his face split in a sunshiny grin. He mouthed something that looked likeIt’s you!Heads turned. William inclined toward Sam in a way that was not quite a bow, more a sunflower bend toward the light. Then he resumed reading.
“Thank you,” he said to room-shaking applause when he wrapped up. “You are so kind.”
Laura, the bookstore owner, stepped over with a mic.“That was absolutely riveting, William. Will you take a few questions?”
William inclined his dark head. “My favorite part.”
“ARE YOU SINGLE?” yelled a woman knitting in a middle row—of course there was a knitter. Everyone laughed.
“To the best of my knowledge, yes,” said William, and a happy noise ran through the crowd—which, like Sam’s audiences, was primarily female. Strike that, Sam realized, looking around: This one was all women. Nary a long-suffering husband in sight.
Laura delivered the mic to another reader. “Mr. Corwyn,” she said, “your books are PART of me. I carry them right here.” She tapped her chest. “My question is, how do you write women so well?”
“First, thank you,” William said, “and second, dozens of female readers on Goodreads and Amazon disagree with you.” More laughter. “Seriously, I get this question at every reading, and it perplexes me as much as honors me. Whywouldn’tI be able to write women well? We’re all just people, with hopes, dreams, loves, and fears—we’re all lambent souls,” he said, gesturing to his book poster on an easel next to the podium, the title embossed in gold over green Irish hills. “Or maybe I’m fibbing. Maybe I write female protagonists because what straight male writer wouldnotwant to spend all his hours in contemplation of the fairer sex?”
Oh my God, Sam thought. Did he really just say that? It sounded like something fromPygmalion. This roomful of feminist women would tear him apart. Instead, they laughed some more. Only one woman didn’t join the jollity: She was standing a few feet away from Sam, wearing a librarian’s flowered dress and a baseball cap pulled low, so all Sam could see was an overbite, a waterfall of blond curls, and a posture of concentration so rapt, she didn’t seem to be breathing. Yeesh, thought Sam, and I thought I had superfans.
Laura ferried the mic to another woman, who said, “William, your books have been so influential for me—I’m a writer, too, though nowhere on your level. But what I wanted to ask about isn’t your novels, it’s the Darlings. Can you talk about them, please?”
“Yes,” William said, with emphasis. “Thank you. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll tell you about the Darlings by spinning a yarn, trick of the trade.” Sam squinted. Why did this sound familiar? Then she remembered William’s letter:If you’ll indulge me, I’ll explain by spinning a yarn. Professional hazard.She did this, too, running lines in writing and then verbalizing them, in a sort of unconscious rehearsal.
William came out from behind the podium and sat on the edge of the signing table with the mic. He shrugged off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves to show his forearms. “Oh my GOD,” the knitter said.
“Once upon a time,” said William, “there was a young man who wanted to be a writer. He wasn’t very good, but he was determined. And he worked hard. He wrote and wrote and wrote, and by some grace of God, after college, he got into a graduate program for creative writing. The young man was in heaven. He was learning from some of the best literary minds in the country. Every day he got to talk craft, debate, exchange shop talk with other writers. And just when he thought his life couldn’t get any better, he fell in love with a woman in his program.”
He drank from the bottle of water Laura had set out. The room had grown so quiet, Sam could hear the hiss of car tires on the wet road outside the store, birds chittering in the bushes. Even the knitter’s needles had paused.
“They did everything together,” William continued, “eat, sleep, write, critique. They spent whole weekends in the bathtub reading to each other, wrinkling like raisins.”
He took out a handkerchief and blotted his forehead, sweating visibly now.
“In the early spring of their second year, the young man proposed. Which he did in workshop, by way of a terrible poem. The young woman said yes, and they began planning their wedding.
“Because they were in love, because he believed he knew her better than anyone on earth, because of their dreams... it came as a great shock to the young man when, that summer, he came home to find that she—forgive me, this is sensitive—she had... taken her own life.”
A woman in the front row gasped. Sam flinched. For a second she saw her own hand reaching for a doorknob, the beige carpet soaked in blood.
William gulped his water and continued.
“The young man was devastated. Everything he’d loved had vanished, in the most sudden and shocking way. He couldn’t eat. Couldn’tsleep. Couldn’t read or write. Everything lost all meaning. All he could think was: Why. Why?”
Sam shuddered. She rubbed her arms, which had seized in goose bumps.
“After a few weeks, the young man realized he was in danger of following his darling into the darkness, and part of him wanted that. So he did the only thing he could think of. He invited everyone in their program to his apartment. All the writers came, and it turned into an impromptu memorial that lasted three days. The writers comforted the young man, talked about his darling, tried to understand what happened. There was plenty of beer, and there might have been...”
William pantomimed smoking a joint. There was some uncertain laughter, though there was more sniffling. Some audience members took advantage of the moment to wipe their eyes.
“And something extraordinary happened, even more so than the generosity. The writers started to share. First one, then another, then they all confessed their struggles. Some, perhaps like the young man’s fiancée, had depression, what Billy Styron calledDarkness Visible. They all had doubt. Impostor syndrome. Worry how they’d earn a living. Fear of what they’d do if they didn’t make it—they were all career writers; they’d never wanted to be anything else.”
