Where is my librarian?

 

Not long ago I read a novel titled, The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict, about a woman of color, who was “passing” and was the personal librarian to J. P. Morgan. Well, my library may not be as extensive as Morgan’s nor as full of rare editions, but tonight I feel like I need a personal librarian.

Jacob made three trips from the house to the cottage this morning to bring me big, heavy boxes (plus another trip with a case of tuna—but that’s another story). I was expecting twelve copies of the new mystery, Finding Florence, but I was unprepared for twenty copies each of reprints of three of my novels about women of the nineteenth-century American West. I knew they were coming, but the new editor at that publisher has been non-communicative, so I had no idea when to expect them. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve proofread all three books. But here they are, handsome paperback editions of Mattie, Cherokee Rose, and Sundance, Butch, and Me. All originally published in the 1990s.

Mattie is the first adult novel I attempted, and I’m pleased to say it won a Spur Award from Western Writers of America as the best novel of the year. One male WWA member protested, “But that’s always been a men’s action category!” The novel is loosely based on the life of Dr. Georgia Arbuckle Fix, pioneer woman physician who rode the plains of western Nebraska to treat patients, though I admit the background I gave fictional Mattie is purely of my imagination. But as authors often do, I worked some of my own life situations into the plot. It is the best-selling book I ever wrote, and I am delighted to see it have new life.

Cherokee Rose is loosely based on the life of cowgirl Lucille Mulhall. Tommy Jo Burns knew she was destined for greatness. Raised on an Oklahoma ranch where her father taught her to rope and ride, at fourteen she so impressed President Teddy Roosevelt that he dubbed her America's first cowgirl. Filled with dreams of joining a Wild West show, she left her parents to create her own family of friends on the road with Colonel Zack Miller's 101 Ranch Show. It was a new and exciting life, so she took a new name: Cherokee Rose. But it didn’t all go as she expected, especially the romance part.

And who among us didn’t see the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford (good heavens! Who needs to say anything more?). The movie resonated with me long after I saw it, immersed as I was in studies of women in the nineteenth-century American West, and I always longed to tell the story from Etta Place’s point of view. Once again, I made up a background for Etta, a brutal one in East Texas, but got her to the San Antonio brothel where history and/or folklore tells us she met the Sundance Kid. But note the title: it’s meant to subtly suggest there was a different but important current between Etta and Butch Cassidy, one of the kindest bandits you’llv ever meet. I am to this day enthralled by the story and delighted to see it back in print.

And of course, there were copies of Finding Florence, which may just have my all-time favorite book jacket face.

So I unpacked all these books. I know that copies of Finding Florence go to my children, the beta readers, the designer, and the two people who have responded to my freebie offer on my newsletter. But what to do with the others? My bookshelves are full. Do I need to add a lean-to to the cottage just for books? There’s no space for that. When I asked Jordan what I should do, she shrugged and said, “I have no idea.” Thank you, Jordan. Mary Dulle, the friend who helps me with my bookshelves, is out of town for two weeks. I am hoping that if Jordan looks at the overflowing coffee table long enough she’ll decide to do something about it. Unfortunately, patience is not my long suit.

And that reminds me: there’s a new issue of my newsletter out this week, with an offer for free copies of Saving Irene, the first Irene in Chicago Culinary Mystery. If you’d like to sign up, please email me at judyltr@gmail.com

Now I’m going to figure out how to take a picture of all four books, without the stacks piled high. I’ve paraded the Finding Florence cover for a while, and I still think it may be my forever favorite. But these reprint covers are low-key, classy, and appealing.

I hope you all want to read a lot in this hot and dry summer. I read where a friend in Montana said finally the rains had stopped. Does she know what that did to my dry soul in this drought?

But this is where we eat dinner most nights.
What can I do with all these books?