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October 4th, 2002
It’s early Saturday Morning. And I mean really early. 4:00 am early. I’ve
been home from the signing for about an hour. I feel really tired and really
wired at the same time. Needless to say, I had a wonderful time tonight meeting
Clive Barker.
I’ve been a fan of the man’s writing for years. Ever since I saw Hellraiser
and decided that I needed to read books by it’s author. The first book I read
by Clive was The Damnation Game. I was hooked. One by one I tracked down all his
books, and have been buying them ever since. They don’t all fit into one neat
genre like some bookstores might have you believe. I think fans of any genre
could find a few books by this author to their liking. (I’ve liked them all).
This tour is for his latest, Abarat, which is the first of a series, and it’s
been picked up by Disney. It is loaded with illustrations by Mr. Barker and is a
beautiful book.
Since he hasn’t really done a signing near me, I wasn’t sure I would get a
chance to see him. However, the biggest Clive Barker fan I know, Mike Lind,
(co-owner of Booked for Murder in Madison Wisconsin), called me and said Barker
would be at Anderson’s books in Napierville, Ill. He said he was thinking
about going, and I said “Cool! Let’s go!”
And go we did. Mike drove an hour to Milwaukee, picked up my sister Dianne and I
and we drove the two hours to Anderson’s. We arrived just after the signing
had started. We found the new book, and bought copies. We were then handed cards
with numbers. As it turns out, due to the volume of fans, they call you up in
groups. Which turned out to be a good idea. Because Clive signed books for
almost five hours. We were towards the end at numbers 105 and 106. So we used
the waiting time to watch, talk to other fans, smoke, talk to the publicist from
Harper Collins, smoke, and finally get to the front of the line.
Clive was so cheerful!! He signed our books, and he also signed pictures of
himself for us. And we also got to have our pictures taken with him. And so did
most other people. He was up and down out of that chair all night! I thanked him
for coming to sign, chatted a bit while he signed my books, and then waited for
Mike and Dianne. We left in a bit of a daze. Clive still smiling and signing.
We went to eat and headed home. After a small false start, we were on the
freeway and driving home to the Jim Carrol band. And to my surprise, Ruth was
still up at three thirty when I walked in. It was a great night, and I’m
really looking forward to the new book. I will probably have an interview with
Clive coming in November, so look for it, he’s really interesting.
And, if he comes to a store near you, GO SEE HIM!!! Just get there early!!
Jon |
