The book tour for Life Choices came to a close on March 21 after three weeks of travel and talks and signings. A whirlwind to be sure, and one that gave me another glimpse into real people’s choices about their lives. The highlights of the tour were not so much about formal promotional or entrepreneurial activities. We did sell books, which is great, but the high points were more about the encounters I had with a number of individuals each of whom revealed the relevance of the book in the impossible to measure terms of their own real lives.
First, there was the woman who was our waitperson at a restaurant in Berkeley. I spent the morning of my first day with my son-in-law, recently laid off from his job, wandering the Cal Berkeley campus in search of the Women’s Studies department. We found it eventually, and the friendly front desk person gladly accepted my academic promo flyers and put one in the mailbox of each instructor. After that we drove the short distance to Rick & Ann’s restaurant to have lunch.
She was probably around thirty, strong and centered, healthy and normal looking. She exuded a pleasant competence, the kind of thing that can make the difference between a good or only mediocre lunching experience. She had an openness and genuiness that prompted me to share that I was at the beginning of a book tour.
“Oh, what’s the book about?” she asked interestedly.
“It’s about women and abortion,” I replied.
“Oh, I know something about that,” she responded, with that self-protective, slightly sarcastic tone we reserve for speaking about something that’s hard to talk about. “I was attacked a year and a half ago,” she added.
I waited a second. “Are you alright?”
She caught her breath and nodded that she was, but tears welled up in her eyes, and she gestured as if to erase something in the air in front of her while saying, “I can’t talk about it, I’m working.”
I understood completely, nodded, and gave her a flyer. That way she could find the book if she wants to. If she does read it, I hope it helps her. She thanked me and went to serve another table.
“There it is,” I said to David. “There’s the whole reason I’m here. If nothing else happens on this trip, it’ll be worth it.”
But other things did happen.
A fortyish man arrived at the bookstore in Ashland, Oregon just as I was beginning my talk there. He slumped down into a chair towards the back of the room looking exhausted. Uh oh, I wondered to myself. Is this the one? Am I going to be harassed by some fanatical anti-abortion misogynist? It was my fear talking, the small worry about safety that causes me to be habitually vigilant.
As it turned out, I was dead wrong. Completely mistaken. The tired man approached me after the talk and waited patiently while I visited and signed books with other people. Then, it was his turn. He wanted to know if I thought my book might be good for a 17 year old girl he knew who had recently had an abortion and had no support. I said yes, I did think so, and was curious as to his relationship to the situation and to her. He explained that he was a youth worker in rural Siskiyou County and that the girl was part of his program.
I felt embarrassed about my earlier fears about him and impressed by his unaffected sincerity and matter of fact caring about the young woman. He had driven a long distance to attend my event with the sole purpose of helping his client. He tapped on my heart and made me remember that you can’t judge a book by its cover, literally or in any other way! I was heartened, and again thought to myself, if that’s the only thing that happens, it will be worth it.
In Portland, I sat in circle with a group of people at the feminist center there. A midwife spoke with anguish about young women she sees in her practice who are having babies they don’t want because they are convinced that having an abortion is the worst thing. She said these women don’t know how to let themselves think things through or give themselves real choices because they’ve been convinced by the anti-abortion propaganda that they shouldn’t have any choices. She was exasperated and worried about what would happen to these young women and to their unwanted children.
I met and talked with many for whom the health of women is of great concern. There was a franticness in some of the exchanges due to the threat posed by the possible loss of legal abortion and contraception. Many are watching and listening incredulously to the political games being played with women’s lives. They don’t know what to make of it all or what to do about it. In some cases, it felt like first stirrings, like many people are waking up and realizing that we are really under threat. If my book helps them find effective understanding and direction, I will have done my job.
One piece of advice I would give to another author considering a book tour is that you have to let go of any idea of the impact of your effort, because it isn’t necessarily measured in sales of books, but rather in minds opened. People’s minds open when and how they do, not how you or I might think they do. It’s likely I’ll never know what effect my book is having because I won’t be privy to that information. That’s okay. What I have been shown is good, and more than enough.
