Wednesday night was the annual Bookspan party at the ultra-swanky Hotel Pierre in Manhattan. This is considered one of the “literary events of the season” and despite that, I was invited for the second straight year.
The first major difference was to note that the company is no longer Bookspan, but Bertelsmann Direct. What does this mean? Well, frankly, not much of anything, except that Bookspan, my publisher, used to be co-owned by AOL Time-Warner and Bertelsmann, but Bertelsmann bought them out a few months ago and now owns it 100%. Bertelsmann also owns the venerable Columbia Record Club as well as some similar concept for a DVD Club. This I know because the goodie bag I received upon leaving contained not only free books, but also free CDs and DVDs. Next to good food, there is nothing I like better than free swag.
(Good-bye)
(hello)
Second thing to take note of is that there were no name tags this year. This was truly odd. See, last year I was a complete novice. I went around staring at people’s chests and wondered half the time what all those company names even meant. Now, I know what they mean, but they threw me a curve by giving no one such identification. We writers were given a tiny little pewter quill pin to wear in our lapel. Fine. So now I could find other writers and people could tell that I was a writer, but that still did not help with names. As this party boasts each year of hosting some of the most stellar names in the literary universe, I could have been standing next to James Patterson or Nicholas Sparks and never even have known it.
We writers were invited to a pre-party “VIP Party.” Again, I had no idea as to the identity of most of the other writers. I chatted with Brain Freeman, whom I met at last year’s soirée, and I saw Mary Higgins Clark and daughter Carol Higgins Clark, a couple of local Jersey Shore girls from down in Spring Lake.
Do you remember that scene from the movie “The Devil Wears Prada” where Meryl Streep’s assistants had to tail her throughout a party, whispering in her ear who each guest was? The moment I signed in, I walked a few yards and a young women whom I had never seen before in my life said, “Mr. Zukus, how are you this evening? Let me escort you in.” How did she know who I was? I noticed that she and a few other younger Bertelsmann employees had “cheat sheets” with author’s headshots and names on them. Now that’s cool.
I was then set upon by attacking photographers. It would be nice to report they were true paparazzi, but Bertelsmann pays these people to troll the party, snapping photos of happy, smiling, eating, drunken people, the more famous the better. Despite being un-famous, I was photographed a number of times. These photos will no doubt be used to show people what a fun event it was and boy, I’ll bet they wish they could have been invited.
All in all, it felt like being cast in someone else’s movie without a script. Not altogether unpleasant, but hard to feel in control of one’s own destiny.
As I read this, I know it sounds somewhat ungrateful. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was a dynamite party and I hope to be asked back next year. But at times it was definately surreal.
Much more later. I haven’t even talked about the food …