June 30, 2007

  Crazy days. Started the book tour in Washington, appearing with Paula (for the first time ever) on Diane Rehm’s program on NPR. When I wrote “A Dog Year” Diane took me aside, and said, “Jon, you have come home as a writer.” She was the first person to say that to me, and she has helped make it so. I am appreciative and grateful. After that, lots of interviews – XM Satellite, WETA.
    The first reading Tuesday night was at Borders Books in Bailey’s, where about 40 people showed up and it was a very smart group asking about human attachment, dog’s mushrooming roles in our emotional lives and other stuff I like to talk about. I believe I don’t know what a book is about until people read it and tell me -this one, I think, is about a person’s dream to own a farm, and his good fortune at seeing that dream come true in middle-age. Also much yakking about Rose and the dogs, of course, and many questions about Elvis and donkeys. Have another month or so to go.
  Got very  nice reviews from the AP, Entertainment Weekly, People, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, NY Times and others. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reviewer was not happy and he said he was disgusted by the appearance of so many dog books, including mine. Publishing, he said, is going to the dogs. I wish. My reading at the Quail Ridge bookstore in Raleigh had to be postponed due to flight cancellations at Washington National and is re-scheduled for August 15.
   Appeared with Izzy and Pearl on CBS This Morning, with both dogs lying right alongside Fifth Avenue. Pearl has always been a media whore, but I was astounded at Izzy, who spent five years alone on a farm (with Emma) and has only seen a big city twice. He was calm and at ease and sat by the anchor. He cuddled with Kimberly, the limo driver, and put his hospice training to use as she talked about the death of her husband and cried. Izzy put his head on her lap.
  Izzy has woven himself into my life, and I missed him this week for the first part of the tour, where he had to stay behind. I don’t fly my dogs any more, since the airlines can barely get me places.
   Pearl modeled a life jacket (strange thing for a Lab) and other dog travelling accessories, and everyone fell in love with her as usual. She has the most beautiful eyes of any dog.
    Tommorrow, the first local appearance at Gardenworks in Salem, and next week, a whole bunch of interviews and then on to Toronto. I am very pleased by the early reviews of the book and ready to hit the road and talk about it and fight for it, the writer’s duty as I see it, although I didn’t always feel that way about book tours. Brian McLendon and Patti Park of Random House have done an amazing job getting publicity for the book.
    I was pleasantly surprised to return to the farm and see that Flo Myrick has painted the carriage barn across from the farmhouse, and I took a picture, below. She got rid of the white trim, and I like it a lot. Soon, there will be no white trim on any of the barns.
   I have ordered a new digital camera, and am trying to convince my editor to let me do a photo journal book of some sort down the road. We’ll see. I am running out to update the photo journal, as I have become addicted to pictures. How nice to return to this beautiful farm, and I will go see the donkeys and Elvis. I am fortunate to be into this new thing – photography – as I lunge through late middle-age. As I told the people in Bailey’s Crossing, I don’t see why middle-age has to mean giving up on things like dreams. Not true.