McEwan's Trees

On my signed copy of Ian McEwan’s ‘Saturday’ he worked his signature into the branches of the trees on the title page. Very fitting for a writer whose stories snake around themselves, thoughts redoubling again and again, shifting and twisting and finally arriving at the unexpected--but unconsciously known--root of the dilemma. I started reading the book after McEwan signed it for me at the Key West Literary Seminar, but I was too scattered as I prepared for my trip to London and couldn’t focus, putting it aside. Then, in London, I saw these trees everywhere, and his signature floated over them in my vision, phantom-like. I’m back in freezing cold NYC right now, and am preparing to curl up with the book and go in.

By the way that was a complete lie, about McEwan signing my book. Even though I had complete and unfettered access to him, I was so intimidated by the man who wrote Atonement that I could barely speak to him, let alone ask him to sign my yearbook. I was probably too intimate with the other authors I was taking care of. Margaret Atwood? Oh yes, we shared stories about visiting Cuba. Michael Cunningham? Mutual friends in New York, darling! Wally Lamb? I said I'd try and hook his son up with work in New York. Chatty, chatty, chatty.

But McEwan? I clammed right up, starstruck and speechless. It was like meeting James Fucking Joyce, for me. I bought my copy in the bookstore, safely pre-signed.