The End--Come Celebrate!
The English language contains two words superior to all others - “THE” and “END.”
I can attest to their beauty because I’ve just typed them – I’ve delivered to my publishers a new novel, The Matchmaker of Kenmare; it’ll be on sale in February, 2011.
They speak volumes, those two darling words. They tell me that the light peeping through the tunnel wasn’t an oncoming train. They tell me – no more waking up and grabbing a notebook at four in the morning because, Oh, God! there’s a contradiction in a major characterization. No more worry that such-and-such a scene stinks (and that there’s major alliteration running riot). And no more shrieks of profanity as my fatigued memory asks: Haven’t you repeated a passage verbatim somewhere?
Yes, it’s lovely, the relief of “THE” and “END”; an adorable feeling of, “Well, I finished it. Despite all the hopping and trotting – I finished it.” But then I had to hit “send” in order to transmit it to Mark Tavani, my editor at Random House - and that's not totally a nice feeling.
It’s not unlike the moment that you take your oldest child to school for the first time. For three or four or five years, you’ve been able to regulate how the world sees him, and therefore you can control how he reflects the work you’ve put into his upbringing, but now you walk him into the school, with his little cap and his knee-socks – and, yep, there he goes, on his own! But now they can say what they like about him. Your only consolation is that you tried as hard as you could, and given the limited access you have to him now, you’ll continue to make such improvements as you can.
Am I being cheesy? Oh, yes. Do I exaggerate? Of course – and quite a lot, especially as I’m too grizzled now to feel unfettered anguish. But would I have held it back if I could? And re-written it? Indeed I would. And there are perhaps only two words in the entire book that I wouldn’t change – and you’ve guessed what they are: “THE” and “END.”
FOOTNOTE: I’m going to do a little reading aloud from it in New York on Wednesday afternoon around 6. Join me at Lillies from 5:30 to 7 or so!.
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