Used Book Stores, Kind Words, Lessons Learned

I had just updated my phone when I was unexpectedly notified of a new follower on Goodreads. My editor warned me a long time ago not to obsess about reviews and so I usually avoid reading them— the good ones are just as distracting as the bad ones, though the bad ones seem to follow me around longer. Anyway, for the most part, I stay away from reviews that might paralyze me with with either self-pity or useless pride.

Still someone new was following me and I thought I'd check it out. Sure enough, my new follower had left a review. Just a peek, I promised myself, and good or bad, I'll get back to my research.

While the review was ultimately good and much appreciated, the opening lines momentarily plunged me into the self-pity mode. 

I found this book in a box of free books in front of a used bookstore. I had zero expectations about it.

I myself am a faithful fan of the used-book store (there are few things more rewarding than finding a treasure, especially a free treasure among all those books). But Flooded, Requiem for Johnstown, has been on the market for barely a year. 

Already discarded? Already used? Already free? 

It's often said that the books we read have the power to change us. Lately, when I visit a classroom or am  invited to speak, I also note that the books I've written have that same power. 

It's been more than a decade since I wrote All The Broken Pieces, but the plight of refugees, their struggle and their courage, the unspoken terrors of the children of war, remain with me. I never walk by a trickling creek without thinking of Serafina struggling to procure water for her family, and when I aim my swatter at the single mosquito who sneaked in with the dog, I think of Grace and her family trudging through the Dismal Swamp, bravely facing snakes and wild cats, preferring the marshy, bug-infested wilderness to a life denied of freedom.  History overflows with unsung heroes.

When I first read about the Johnstown Flood of 1889, I was reminded that large numbers do not capture the terrible enormity of grief as much as the reflection on a single life lost. I was not yet a teen when Anne Frank taught me this. 

2,209 people died in the Johnstown Flood of 1889, each of them with aspirations that I set out to honor even as I fictionalized their lives. Perhaps if Flooded hadn't been published during the pandemic it might have reached more people before being tossed aside. There were no conferences during the pandemic. No book festivals. No official launch. Publishers and reviewers, like so many of us, were caught off guard, struggling to balance work and child care, figuring out how to maneuver zoom screens and conserve paper goods. 

As of the moment I write this, 722,685 Americans have died of Covid-19. The number continues to rise. Large numbers do not capture the terrible enormity of this grief, but surely the lives of these individuals are far more important than a book lost to the pandemic could ever be.

My initial discouragement has given way to gratitude for used book stores, kind words, lessons learned.  Thanks for rescuing my book, Brooke.