When the chips are down and Robin and I ask each other why we got into this vexing business we always say "the authors." To have an opportunity to talk with and get to know a writer whose works you admire is priceless (and actually most of the writers whose books I don’t like are also worth meeting). Last night’s event with Thomas H. Cook was one of those peak experiences. I’ve been gaga over his work ever since I picked up Breakheart Hill and I’ve read all his efforts since them. In the flesh he’s completely charming, extremely intelligent, courtly and possessed of a becoming sense of humor. We had a crowd that did the store great honor and Tom delivered one of the great talks and question and answer sessions we’ve ever hosted. We even got to go out afterward and were treated to some inside stuff and Tom’s puckish personality as he sipped his vodka gimlet.

Which makes today, setting the store back up and returning to the humdrum a bit of a comedown, as Tom heads on to Dayton and later to an establishment in Blytheville, Arkansas imaginatively known as That Bookstore in Blytheville. At least we’re left with his books, many of which I’m rereading, as well as a couple of short stories I didn’t know were out there.

Here’s a few passages from his latest The Master of the Delta, which I’ve read twice in as many months, mostly about its fatal beauty, one Sheila Longstreet:

Sheila Longstreet, the universally acknowledged school beauty, lifted her delicately fashioned arm

Sheila said something, tossed her hair in that flirtatious way of hers, and to my surprise, reached out and touched Eddie’s arm, a gesture so bold and explicit I knew it must have sent a current through him, such a beautiful girl, and so close: desire’s electric charge.

It was just an instant of suspension, one of those unforeseeable folds in time that opens to or closes upon a wholly different life.

She saw me in the bleachers, waved softly, then surprised me by walking over. In the bright sun of that afternoon, her long black hair gleamed almost as mysteriously as her equally dark eyes. Her skin was milk white and seemed to radiate a glow all its own.

Time and loneliness and the long drip of disappointment had weathered her into a raggedly composed middle-aged woman.

I thought of all that gathered round us in this life, the passion of our striving, the sting of our regret, how mighty it is and huge with feeling, our little book of days, even when, especially when, it is touched by darkness.