My BEA reading
Here's the text of the reading I gave at BookExpo today. I was thrilled to have PLAIN KATE chosen as one of the five "buzz books" from the entire huge conference. (And I mean huge conference. You could launch this think into space as a second biosphere; it's that big. (Of course, we'd have to eat Javits center sushi and each other, and not necessarily in that order ...))
I digress.
I thought the reading and the panel -- snappily run by Jack Martin of NYPL, and thank you to him! -- went very well, even though my microphone made as if to explode at one point. Here is what I read, more or less....
Plain Kate is a fairy-tale flavored book, and as most fairy tales are, it’s about a strong girl in a bad spot. The people of her village think she’s a witch -- a serious thing, because witches are hunted and burned. To escape them, Kate sells the only thing she has that anyone values - her shadow.
This, as you might imagine, is a terrible mistake.
In this scene Kate and her new friend Drina are trying to get her shadow back. Drina has made a charm out of hair and thrown it in the fire. They're alone in a small tent by the river; it's a foggy night.
The stink of burnt hair instantly filled the tent. The silence got tight, like the top of a drum.
Taggle’s fur rose into a thick ridge down his spine. And then Drina started to sing.
It was a mumbling, murmuring song, a song a river might sing. Plain Kate couldn’t tell if it didn’t have words or if she didn’t know the language. It was mournful as an old memory, and it made Kate remember - suddenly and so clearly she could smell it - the moment her father had died. He had called her name, but his eyes were already seeing the shadowless country, and she didn’t know -she would never know -if he was calling for her, or her mother.
Drina, singing, leaned across the fire. ‘Shadow, shadow, shadow . . .’ went the song.
The air was thick with smoke. The tears on Plain Kate’s cheeks were cold, the rest of her face was scorching. Against the tent wall, shadows whirled - Drina’s thin, Taggle’s dancing, and a third-
An ugly noise came from deep in Taggle’s throat.
Plain Kate watched the third shadow; it pinned her eyes. It was supposed to be her shadow, but it wasn’t. It was sinuous and moved like a water snake. She knew in her stomach that this was not a simple shadow, but some cold thing, some damp dead thing that should be resting. And, though their fire was the only light, she thought this shadow was not cast backwards from the flame, but was drawing near to it, from outside the tent.
I digress.
I thought the reading and the panel -- snappily run by Jack Martin of NYPL, and thank you to him! -- went very well, even though my microphone made as if to explode at one point. Here is what I read, more or less....
Plain Kate is a fairy-tale flavored book, and as most fairy tales are, it’s about a strong girl in a bad spot. The people of her village think she’s a witch -- a serious thing, because witches are hunted and burned. To escape them, Kate sells the only thing she has that anyone values - her shadow.
This, as you might imagine, is a terrible mistake.
In this scene Kate and her new friend Drina are trying to get her shadow back. Drina has made a charm out of hair and thrown it in the fire. They're alone in a small tent by the river; it's a foggy night.
The stink of burnt hair instantly filled the tent. The silence got tight, like the top of a drum.
Taggle’s fur rose into a thick ridge down his spine. And then Drina started to sing.
It was a mumbling, murmuring song, a song a river might sing. Plain Kate couldn’t tell if it didn’t have words or if she didn’t know the language. It was mournful as an old memory, and it made Kate remember - suddenly and so clearly she could smell it - the moment her father had died. He had called her name, but his eyes were already seeing the shadowless country, and she didn’t know -she would never know -if he was calling for her, or her mother.
Drina, singing, leaned across the fire. ‘Shadow, shadow, shadow . . .’ went the song.
The air was thick with smoke. The tears on Plain Kate’s cheeks were cold, the rest of her face was scorching. Against the tent wall, shadows whirled - Drina’s thin, Taggle’s dancing, and a third-
An ugly noise came from deep in Taggle’s throat.
Plain Kate watched the third shadow; it pinned her eyes. It was supposed to be her shadow, but it wasn’t. It was sinuous and moved like a water snake. She knew in her stomach that this was not a simple shadow, but some cold thing, some damp dead thing that should be resting. And, though their fire was the only light, she thought this shadow was not cast backwards from the flame, but was drawing near to it, from outside the tent.