No Wonder the Book Looked Familiar

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I was feeling faintly flush with cash, having received a bit of lagniappe, so I decided to saunter down to the bookstore and browse the bargain bin. I needed a break from either working on my own stuff or reading heavy history — preferably  a novel for under $10 in either trade paperback or hardcover. I have quit buying small paperbacks because the type is too small, I tire of trying to hold them open, and the paper quality is crummy. I have become a book snob in my near-dotage. Besides, shelf space is at a premium until I get busy in the shop, and building a bookcase is way down the to-do list. I have retackled refinishing and rebuilding my Beautiful Mystery Companion’s massive convent table now that it is warm enough to work outside. I have promised to finish it before starting any other shop projects.

I have a circle of go-to novelists I look for in the bargain bins. Since I stay several years behind, and they are prolific writers, I can usually find something I haven’t read at a good price by Nevada Barr, Dennis Lehane, James Lee Burke, Elmore Leonard, Tim O’ Brien, Barbara Kingsolver and a few others whose work I have read before. I don’t want a novel heavy enough that if I dropped it on Rosie the Wonder Dog she might suffer a concussion. I save my reading brainpower of 1,200-page tomes for the true stories — biographies of presidents and such. But I don’t want to spend $10 for a novel I can finish in a single sitting either. Two nights, maybe — though I prefer a three-night stand. A 450-page middle-brow novel is ideal for what I’m looking for when I just want to unwind and be entertained by what I’m reading. As I said, I have become a bit of a book snob.

I headed to the store and straight to the “Novels under $10” stacks. This bookstore is part of a chain, the only store left in our town that sells new books. It has a large selection but not much soul. A locally owned store that started decades ago as a bookstore and then added all manner of knick-knacks, clothing and even a very nice café, finally reluctantly closed its bookstore section last year, though the rest of the business still seems to thrive. I don’t know what will become of bookstores, though I’m as guilty as the next person, looking for that $10 bargain.

Not to get off track here, but a friend emailed me a story the other day about a fellow who wrote a novel that managed to make it to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list for a week. That’s a pretty big deal. At one point, a book I wrote for the University of Texas Press (“A Hanging in Nacogdoches,” still available from UT-Press or me but I’ll sign it if you buy it from me) cracked the Top 10,000 on the list. But that only lasted about two days, and it slipped down to 998,333 in the rankings. Anyway, this fellow wrote a fine piece for Salon recounting how his family figured he would soon be lighting up cigars with $100 bills after making it to the top of the Amazon best-seller list for seven days.

If that were only true. The fellow says he made a grand total of $12,000 off his novel. The sad part is that’s pretty good money these days for a novel, since he only sold 4,000 copies and had a great royalty arrangement. To date, in six years my little hanging book has sold about 1,000 copies, which has netted me about $1,050 in royalties. The last royalty check was $24.82. I cashed it and bought a book with it. Seriously.

Anyway, I spied a James Lee Burke hardcover I hadn’t read, published in 2010, titled “The Glass Rainbow.” He is one of my favorite writers, someone who writes in the mystery genre but regularly rises above it, a really fine wordsmith  with great characters I have been following for years: Dave Robicheaux and Cletus Purcell in Louisiana, Hackberry Holland in Texas and Billy Bob Holland in Montana. This book featured the Louisiana duo and Dave’s daughter, Alafair, a budding writer. (In real life, James Lee Burke’s daughter is also named Alafair. She is a law professor and successful novelist.) I couldn’t wait to get home to read it.

I settled in after dinner, heating pad soothing my still-healing back, Sam the Other Dog at my feet, and dove in to another dark tale from New Iberia. After 100 pages or so, I sensed a familiarity to the plot, which is only natural with such familiar characters. Then I got up and went to the shelves. My stack of James Lee Burke novels is about head high, just above the television in my study. Sure enough, there was the copy of “The Glass Rainbow” I apparently bought at some point last year on another jaunt to the bargain bin.

Well, crud. I was enjoying reading “The Glass Rainbow” so much that I decided to not let it bother me that I don’t remember reading it the first time. When done, I’ll give the second copy to somebody for Christmas. I must say that never happens with one of those heavy historical tomes. For example, I have never picked up one of Robert Caro’s volumes about Lyndon Johnson, having forgotten that I once read it.

And I am certain nobody has ever read my hanging book twice by accident. Or on purpose, for that matter.

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