All about the Jenna Book Club

I'll be on the Today Show January 25, 10:45 or so

Well, when I’m nervous about an event, I fuss over what I am wearing, something I do not fuss about normally. My publicist at W.W. Norton thinks I should wear a dress. I have purchased three different dresses trying to get the right one. Everybody else thinks pants. Some say jeans because I’m that kind of person, but the truth is I don’t have any jeans that really fit well. Mostly at home I wear jeans that my sister gives me because she has lost weight, and they are all too short.

Too short is not a problem in winter usually since I’m wearing big snow boots, but I don’ think I’ll wear snow boots on the Today Show. This brings me to the problem of footwear. Because I wear size 12 shoes, my choices are limited. I have a lot of shoes in my closet because I easily get excited when I see a pair of size 12s and I buy them, even if they are what I really want.

I remember once, when I was living in Boston, my cousin Mimi Lipson excitedly presented me with a pair of size 12 cream-colored high-heeled pumps. “Look, your size!” she said and I excitedly slid them on my feet without a thought. Only then did she and I both notice they were well-worn, beat-up, and covered with a kind of green fungus or algae. She’d found them abandoned in Fenway park.

Be assured that I like having big feet—I’m more stable than other people and I don’t fall down. And in recent years, my shoe choice has increased slightly, perhaps because of the voices of trans women, who need shoes for the kind of feet I have. So, anyhow, I got some nice gray suede size 12 Spanish leather booties from a second-hand website, like new. Yes, they are still tight, yes I own a boot stretcher.

Here is the video of Jenna announcing the book pick!

So I will arrive at the Today Show at 10am on Thursday, January 25, and I am told to be “camera ready.” Now as a former newspaper worker, I know what camera ready is for printing, but I have no idea whether my bare face will appear washed out, or if I am supposed to suddenly burst forth wearing make up after not wearing it my whole life.

This might be the Instagram video of Jenna Bush Hager zooming with me at my river shack to tell me I was the January pick.

My W.W. Norton crew offered me a “blow-out,” which sounds dangerous and scary, and I fear I would walk out of any such encounter looking strange to myself. I recall that for my sister’s wedding, a family friend made my mother up (my mother had never worn a smudge of make up), and her face became a horror show that (for me) made the whole wedding surreal. The marriage did not last.

I will try to maintain my dignity through this. I have the nice (tight) Spanish boots, a pair of gray Lee slacks size 6 Tall, a blue sweater and a scarf. Because Jaimy Gordon (my writing teacher) and Katherine Joslin (my wise neighbor) say I should wear jeans, I have ordered a pair of 6 Tall Lee jeans as well, and if they arrive today, I’ll take those along as well when I leave home tomorrow morning.

After the show, I walk (across the street?) to the NBC store to sign books. I wish I could ask my NYC friends to come see me there, but I fear it will not be a good time for socializing! I will have my donkey stamp with my archival ink pad and add that fun element to my signings (Thank you, Erin, for that thoughtful gift!) And then, lickety split, I’ll be on a commuter train to Rhinebeck for an evening signing. I will spend less than 24 hours in New York City!

And all this fussing about clothes is to distract me from what I’ll say I still haven’t honed the elevator pitch, but I’ve gotten a little less self-conscious, no longer expressing concern about the cost of the book. Word is that I’ll be on at about 10:45, sitting in a chair with my pants and shoes showing for all the TV audience to see. I’ll try to remember to wear normal socks in case they show—mostly I wear brightly striped compression socks because they make me smile.

Whatever I say, I’ll try to be a good ambassador for all the Michiganders back home, for the scrappy literary writers who continue to write despite the difficulties. As for the book itself, The Waters, I will try to be a good ambassador for it, a good mommy, but there is a sense in which the book is not mine anymore. It has gone out into the world and will make of itself what it is to be. Love to you all! Bonnie

(once again, here is my list of January signing/reading events—if you click you can see all my events, February and beyond)