Slipping update

In glancing back at my posts over the past couple of months (as scant as they have been), I am stunned that I have not written more about the progress made in the publication of "Slipping."

First, right before Thanksgiving, Cathleen received in the mail her first advance copy of the book. It was remarkable, holding the book in my hand, staring at the cover, flipping through the pages and seeing "cathleen davitt bell" at the top of each page. The advance copy is just a paperback, and so it's a bit less than what the real deal will feel like, but I found myself just picking it up and feeling it several times over the first couple of days. We brought it to Bloomfield with us, of course, to show everyone. I couldn't wait for Cathleen to drop her cool to show it off, so I took it out to show to Sophie and Claudia, the latter of whom promptly burst into tears. "She really did it, didn't she?" she asked. I kind of think that's how all of us who have been rooting for her for so long feel right about now.

On the night after Thanksgiving, we sat around in Claudia and Walter's livingroom after the kids were in bed, and Cathleen read the first three chapters of the book out loud to us. Beyond revised bits and pieces that Cathleen had asked me to look at over the past year or so, I hadn't actually looked at the text since I first read her initial completed draft about three years ago, and so the actual prose had become a bit of an abstraction for me. So listening to it again, almost as if for the first time, was so refreshing because it is so damn well-written. For example, she would never use "so" three times in a sentence.

Then, just before we left for Bloomfield again for Christmas, Cathleen received a copy of Bloomsbury Children's Books' spring catalogue. Bloomsbury, it appears, is intent on promoting "Slipping." You look at the back cover of the catalogue, the cover of "Slipping" is one of four pictured. You look at the Table of Contents inside, the cover of "Slipping" is again featured. You turn to page 16, you see the two-page spread for the book. Bloomsbury done good by "Slipping" so far.

Not to beat the word exciting to death, but it is very exciting. I walk by Posman Books in Grand Central every day, and I half expect to see "Slipping" in the window already. Calm down, rick, calm down. Six months to go still.