With three best-sellers, a screenplay, and a graphic novel in the works, Rainbow Rowell is proof the past doesn’t actually have to repeat itself.
Augusten Burroughs
Rainbow Rowell can never look in one direction for long. She meets the eyes of a fan clutching a copy of her novel Eleanor & Park in the audience at Housing Works Bookstore in New York City, then darts her focus down to her shoes. "I could not say I wrote this book because of The Mountain Goats," she says holding up her own copy of Eleanor & Park, "but I would not have written it without them."
One of them, John Darnielle from The Mountain Goats, looks on from the audience. He's reading tonight as well, from his debut novel Wolf in White Van, and that's why this isn't just any reading for Rowell. She has come a long way to be here. All the way from Omaha, Neb., where she writes, and lives with her husband and two young sons. She's here to publicize her fourth and newest novel, Landline, the story of a marriage on the rocks, a suffocating friendship, and a magic telephone. With Darnielle here, the reading takes on another color. Rowell, who — in the best way imaginable — looks exactly like a woman named "Rainbow," is at once a critically acclaimed YA novelist about to embark on a reading tour of both Europe and the United States and a fangirl whose voice cracks when she talks about the influence The Mountain Goats have had on her work.
"I felt like those songs were coming from inside of me, getting louder and louder," she says. "I cried over those songs. That album unlocked me, and continues to unlock me." Rowell refers to the band's 2005 album, The Sunset Tree. A few heads in the audience nod aggressively. "Wow. This may be the first time I've cried at a reading."
After reading an excerpt from the novel, followed by Darnielle, Rowell moves closer to the information counter. Her fans line up to have their books signed. She signs everything from her first novel, Attachments, to her latest, Fangirl, even a copy of Murder She Wrote for a fan who forgot the book. Darnielle comes and sits beside her, author and author, musician and fan united at last. They regard each other as old friends, although they'd only just met. He isn't supposed to be signing books (Wolf in the White Van is yet to be released), but I point out a young man who had been standing next to me in the crowd clutching a well-worn album. I tell him, "That young man there. I think he'd probably die if you signed that album." Darnielle immediately rises and walks over to the kid and his father. He signs the album and takes a photo. The album owner is beaming.
A member of Darnielle's team leans over and whispers to me, "He didn't say much onstage, but when she finished reading, he almost cried."
Ashley Ford
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