Happy Birthday, Libertie

Today my second novel, Libertie, officially launches into the world.

Sometimes I think writing this book damn near ended me but, in fact, I think it furthered my life in so many ways. So many times in the past five years, I made decisions, good and bad, in service of what this book could be, what I wanted it to be, what I felt it could be in my mind.

I remember a few months after I’d sold it, sitting at a writing conference with Alex Chee. “I have a new project,” I told him. I outlined the plot of Libertie, as I understood it then. Eventually he told me, “Be careful about the fiction you write. It has a way of coming true in your own life.”

What a fearsome thing to say! What a gift! At first I took it literally, but as I thought about it further, I realized it was a version of Toni Cade Bambara’s maxim, that you be careful what you give breath to. In Libertie’s case, it meant writing from different emotions besides irony and intellectual distance. Did that make a better novel? I have no idea.

Anyways, today is Libertie’s birthday. You can order copies here. Tonight, I will join my friend Mira Jacob at the Center for Fiction at 7 pm EST to talk all things this book. If you can’t join us then, the first half of my tour is below.