Author News and Book Reports
Wally Lamb gently shepherds his readers to introspection
In two appearances at the Miami Book Fair International 2008 and 2009, critically celebrated, bestselling author Wally Lamb tended his flocks of fans with personal revelations and readings of his two most recent books. Taking the stage at the 2008 Miami Book Fair, Lamb dedicated the reading to his 'biggest fan,' a woman named Mickey Warner, who had been waiting eagerly for The Hour I First Believed but passed away before he finished it. Before reading from the novel, Lamb read a biographical essay titled Braided Cords about his father's influence in his life. Lamb wrapped the appearance with a reading from The Hour I First Believed (Harper Perennial; August, 2009), featuring the novel's protagonist, Caelum Quirk, as an 8-year old third grader. A year later, we caught up with Wally Lamb again at the Miami Book Fair where he was reading from his new bestseller, Wishin' and Hopin': A Christmas Story (Harper; November, 2009), a very different novel in tone and temperament than The Hour I First Believed, featuring the novel's protagonist, Catholic School fifth-grader Felix Funicello and goody two-shoes classmate Rosalie Twerski, bad-girl Russian immigrant Zhenya Kabakova, and the kill-joy, disciplinarian Sister Mary Agrippina. Afterwards, Lamb took questions from the audience on his own Catholic School experience; whether he was professionally coached for his audio book recording of Wishin' and Hopin' (Lamb's first audio book recording); and his reflections on the tragi-comic nature of everyday life.
