November 9, 2005
An Exclusive Interview with the Un-Famous One Posted by Julie M. Fenster at 03:00 PM EST With two months to go before Morrow publishes our book, I am getting nervous about plans for a book tour. So far I haven’t heard a thing. The book is Parish Priest, a biography of Father Michael McGivney. The coauthors are Douglas Brinkley and me. Doug is famous, you see, and rightly so, with two bestsellers of late, Tour of Duty, which is about John Kerry, and The Boys of Pointe du Hoc, which is about D-Day. He is also on television quite often as a commentator. I’m not quite as famous, I admit. Though I do command a certain following at the DeWitt, New York, Barnes & Noble. Last Friday I called the publicity person at the publishing house. He confirmed that there indeed are plans to send Doug to a couple of cities. He said there are no plans to send me anywhere. I am not at all certain he knows who I am. Not even the DeWitt Barnes & Noble. It’s only a quarter-mile from my house. I could walk there, if it would save the company expense money. A person who does not have a complex could get a complex. Albeit, Doug is more famous than I am. Granted, he’s nicer, too. But I can contribute something to publicity. One time at a book-convention signing party, I had a longer line than Roger Ebert. Doesn’t that count for something? I telephoned our literary agent today and tried to cheer myself up by asking about the full-page ads that are planned for The New York Times and other big papers. It always does my heart good to think about those. I am going to have them framed and put up on the wall. I shall be immortal in my guestroom. What a coincidence: The agent had just seen the dummies for the ads, so he told me. They forgot to include my name.
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