During the downtime between book deadlines, I’ve been able to catch up on my reading. As many writers can attest, when you’re writing you want to read, and when you’re reading it’s easy to wish you were writing.
Not to say I haven’t been dabbling with the next manuscript, trying to reach that acceleration point where the process takes over, but with the holidays, it’s slow. Oh, I’m getting five pages a day, but they haven’t sparked yet.
So for inspiration, I picked up an old favorite off one of the shelves behind my desk. It was Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show, a book that should be required reading for all future Texan authors. It’s not a long novel, and I finished it in one blustery afternoon when I couldn’t force myself into going outside. Putting it back, my fingers brushed Texasville, and I was away on another adventure with his character Duane Moore in Thalia, Texas.
After finishing all five books in that saga, my appetite for McMurtry wasn’t sated. I considered his Lonesome Dove books, but decided to read some of his more contemporary novels , and that’s when tragedy struck.
See, I’m a collector. When I find an author I can’t put down, I’ll search out all their works in first edition, and I’ve been a McMurtry fan since reading All My Friends are Going to be Strangers back in high school. I have them all, and went to find the next one. But I hadn’t put them order since we had the new bookcases put in. When the Bride and I bought this new house, we hired a craftsman to install my dream shelves that now groan under the weight of bound worlds.
Once the cabinetmake finished, and my librarian daughter quit climbing the ladder and rolling back and forth on the rail, and we simply unloaded all the books from the boxes, putting them only in author order, and I’ve never gone back and sorted them.
“Good lord!”
The Bride wandered into my office a few minutes later, unimpressed by my outburst. “What have you done now?”
“I’m missing a McMurtry.”
“Are you sure?”
I blinked at her for a long moment. “Of course I’m sure. I’m standing here on the ladder, looking at all the titles and In a Narrow Grave isn’t here.”
“You sure you had that one?”
“What’s with the interrogation? I remember all my books, and the day I picked that one up from a bargain bin long before we met. It was one of those little bookstores that just bought books and stacked them around.” I momentarily drifted away. “What a wonderful store.”
“Go buy another one.”
I shook my head “This was a first edition.”
“So?”
“The last one I saw was somewhere around eight hundred dollars.”
“Well, you need to find that one.”
We searched high and low. It wasn’t mis-shelved, or behind other books. It was simply gone. I might have lost it in one of the several moves over the years, but I swear I remember seeing it on the shelf in our previous house.
But then another lightning bolt struck as I put the remainder of McMurtry’s works in order. “Good lord!”
“Really?” She wandered back in. “What now?”
“The Late Child and Somebody’s Darling are gone too!”
Que the mystery music. Dum, dum, dum.
As the camera moves in, we exchanged perplexed expressions, and then understanding dawned.
I felt faint and placed both palms against my cheeks. “Someone’s borrowed them!!!”
Her eyes widened. “Without asking!!!”
I’m sure the Bride would have taken to the fainting couch, if we had one.
“Hannah!” The name unconsciously slipped out.
The Bride shook her head at the mention of our youngest daughter’s best friend. I like to blame her for many incidents and accidents through the years from the time they were children, but the Bride yanked me back. “She’s off the hook. She doesn’t read.”
I struggled with her statement “Hannah asked me for a recommendation one time, when she was in middle school. I might have given her a book, and I doubt she ever brought it back. Maybe she likes odd numbers and took two more.”
“You wouldn’t have given her either one of those.”
“You’re right.” I struggled with the enormity of what we faced. Someone borrowed two prized possessions. Why didn’t they take the dog instead, or one of the girls? At least they would have wandered back home at some point.”
“Burglars,” I wondered aloud. “Maybe there’s some hot, black market for those two volumes.”
I don’t own a lending library. I’d learned my lesson decades earlier when I loaned my complete collection of William Jose Farmer’s World of Tiers series to a good friend who loved to read. We shared many fine hours talking books and authors, until he betrayed me. He finished those first editions and ––– gave them to someone else.
“I didn’t know you wanted them back,” he answered, perplexed when I asked for them back.
They’re as gone as the Library of Alexandria.
Today there’s only three people who are on the Loan List, and two of them have their own McMurtry collections. (I wonder if they completed those by borrowing mine…nah.)
Pouring two fingers of Buffalo Trace to settle my nerves and a great sense of loss, I resumed arranging my entire library, which took some time, leaving space on the shelf to replace those missing volumes.
Now the search begins to find quality first edition replacements. It will be a hard, bitter road, but the sense of anticipation, and then joy of discovery, is something to look forward to.
So if you’re considering a Christmas present for me, you now have an idea.
With that, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. Good luck to the writers, and happy reading to those who enjoy settling in with a good book.
As this is my last post here before TKZ takes its annual holiday break, I’d like to wish everyone my best wishes for a happy holiday season, no matter what you celebrate. And if you don’t celebrate any holidays in December, I wish you a happy month.
My normal style is to alternate chapters between my POV characters. Which brings me to transitions.
Shalah Kennedy has dreams of becoming a senior travel advisor—one who actually gets to travel. Her big break comes when the agency’s “Golden Girl” is hospitalized and Shalah is sent on a Danube River cruise in her place. She’s the only advisor in the agency with a knowledge of photography, and she’s determined to get stunning images for the agency’s website.
Like bang for your buck? I have a 
