Sue Dittmar goes to as many author events as she can. A mom living in St. Charles County (she’s also trained as a librarian), Sue also runs several book reading groups. She offers this amusing eyewitness report from Michael Chabon’s recent visit: 

On Saturday May 3 Michael Chabon was at the St. Louis County Library Headquarters. I had been looking forward to the appearance since spotting the listing in the Left Bank Books monthly calendar. I noted the doors opened at 6:00 pm and that meant (to me) a lot of people were expected. When I arrived, I thought I had the wrong date or screwed something up. There were hardly any cars in the parking lot! I went in and found there were few people already in the front rows but nothing like I had expected. I guess I was early or something because by the time Donn Marsh stepped up to the
microphone the place was pretty full.

I don’t know why but I thought Michael Chabon (Shay-bon) was 6 foot 4 and muscular. I sort of inferred that from the publicity picture you see on the back of his books. Well, he isn’t. But that isn’t to say he is a shrinking violet. Chabon stepped up to the microphone and told us he was royally sick of reading the beginning of his book. He opened “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union”  to the middle and began to read about his hardboiled and lackluster detective Meyer Landsman.

We were transported to an Alaska that was cold, dark and seemingly without hope or good food. Chabon’s book is full of ironic details and puns, insider jokes and outside ones too. You actually have to read some of the sections out loud in order to understand what is so funny. The tone Chabon used was of a noir film voiceover and it
totally fit. His voice brought to life the outlandishness of the whole
situation!
I got the feeling during the questions that Chabon wasn’t totally
comfortable talking about himself or his work. He would listen to the question and then talk for a while  -  maybe answering the question, maybe not.
One question was about poorly written nonfiction and what his advice would be to the struggling person. Answer: get better. His favorite author is Raymond Chandler. As Chabon read “Policemen’s Union”  you could hear the Chandler influence. He also has been working on scripts with Scott Rudin. I guess Chabon is more comfortable meeting people one on one because when I went
through the signing line, he was a very charming person and seemed to be grateful readers came to see him.

 I plan on reading this book, but probably when a book group has it for a selection.

On Tuesday May 6 I went to the monthly meeting of the Sisters in Crime book group, Make Mine Mystery. We had local author Ryan Jones talking about his first book, “Datashark.”  We gather at Main Street Books in St. Charles.
Anyone is welcome to come and enjoy the evening. If you are computer literate you ought to take note of this book. Jones presents a situation where a normal human being is put in a very extraordinary situation. He paints a picture of government computers being hacked everyday by people inside and outside the United States. What would happen if someone decided to use your computer to blow up an electrical plant or cause your cell phone
to trigger a bomb? According to Jones, these things could possibly happen.

This is an exciting ride but I will admit it gets a little confusing and
dense after a while. Now I like computers and what they have done for me but do I really need to know the intricate workings of so and so agency or what computers a hacker uses to break into a database? I also had to keep a character crib sheet. My attention did wander a lot but he did have some cool action sequences.
Until the next author arrives….

Sue Dittmar
So many books, so little time.