When Writers Love Each Other's Work . . .

And then fall in love with each other

Marianne Leone and I met after I read her first memoir, JESSE: A Mother’s Story, when I wrote a piece about her book in the Huffington Post.

I started Jesse, A Mother's Story, twice.

The stark beauty of this memoir hit me the moment I began. Marianne Leone's narrative, written with an unrelenting immediacy, yanked me into her world.

Leone's son Jesse owned me from his first moment on the page. By the end of the prologue, Leone had so engaged me that I put it aside. Because I knew how it would end. Because I was a coward. I'd already fallen in love with the family and I needed to build up courage to continue.

Sometime later I began reading again. This time, thank God, I couldn't stop, because Jesse, A Mother's Story gave me one of the greatest gifts of my reading life. I learned that you could go on. You could have utmost love, and then the worst possible pain, and, though you never lose the grief, you could still find that love. That connection between mother and child can continue to envelope you in your dreams and soul. Perhaps that's what keeps you from total madness.

Jesse, A Mother's Story is a written by a mother who loves her son with ferocity -- the ferocity parents of disabled children need more than others' parents. Jesse Cooper had severe cerebral palsy, was unable to speak, and was quadriplegic and wracked by severe seizures. He was also stunningly bright, funny, and loving. His parents, Marianne Leone and Chris Cooper, needed both rage and ferocious love if Jesse's light was to come out in full. . …

Marianne reached out to let me know how much she’d loved my first novel, The Murderer’s Daughters. And, miracle of miracles, we lived close to each other, met IRL, and a friendship was born of our readerly admiration.

Writers are readers. Huge readers. And often, despite our innate shyness and tendency towards embracing loneliness, we reach out to each other. By email. By Facebooks. And, in days gone yore, via Twitter.

Twitter was how I met the brilliant writer Robin Black. I still don’t know who first shared their admiration publicly, but we met online and then became IRL friends.

I still recommend her extraordinary books and look forward to talking with her anytime. Sharing a meal is the cherry on the sundae.

There are so many friends I’ve met through their words—folks I’ve reached out to and vice-versa:

Matthew Daub, author of Leaving Eastern Parkway. Oh, I loved his book, which forced me to write him—thus building a writerly loving appreciation that went both ways.

Jennifer S. Brown, who, though we were already friendly, became tightly bound in ropes of love when we blurbed each other’s most recent books—Jennifer’s The Whisper Sister kept me stapled to the couch until the last page.

Bringing me to the next stage: eventing together. (I don’t think ‘eventing’ is a word, but it should be.)

Robin and I traveled to Minnesota for the joy of doing a book event together—and then she stayed in my house for almost a week as we covered the greater Boston area for shared book talks.

Book events with a friend whose work you admire bring an extra frisson to connecting with readers—one gets to be the delighted reader while working as a writer.

If you’re in Boston), Marianne Leone and I will share a microphone at the JP Literary Series at Papercuts Bookstore on Tuesday, January 14, at 7 PM.
This is how much I loved her most recent work, Five-Dog Epiphany: I’d gladly give up my spot in the spotlight to listen to Marianne read.

Come hear the wonderful Marianne!!!

Marianne is one of only two authors whose reading never sends me to the land of drifting away. The other one is Tayari Jones—another writer whose every book I fell in love with so much I had to reach out, and who can read to me forever and ever.)

Reading is my sustenance, my joy, and my comfort.

Reading might have been my first love—no wonder it leads to the love of those who put the words on the page.

PS: I’m blessed to be at events with six authors I love during the next two months.