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May 27, 2004

Friend Dunn Good

Old pal Sarah Dunn and I got together for an evening of games, sandwiches, reminiscence and celebration of her soon to be bestselling first novel, THE BIG LOVE. It's being published by Little, Brown in their prominent mid-summer pole position (occupied last year by Carolyn Parkhurst's THE DOGS OF BABEL and the prior summer by THE LOVELY BONES). Sarah's got a wry, self-deprecating sense of humor that's always tempered by kindness and common sense. I'll take a miniature bow for persistently urging her to reach beyond the entertainment section (called 34th Street) of the University of Pennsylvania's student newspaper (The Daily Pennsylvanian) and submit work to The City Paper, one of Philadelphia's alternative weeklies, where I was freelancing at the time...This was way back in '87-'88: Sixteen years later, THE BIG LOVE performs a gentle act of comic alchemy on Sarah's subsequent tenure as a City Paper columnist -- All of the names have been changed to protect the innocent (and guilty), but in truth, Sarah (who spent the years between CP and THE BIG LOVE writing the non-fiction SLACKER HANDBOOK and TV shows including MURPHY BROWN and SPIN CITY) doesn't give anyone more than a genial ribbing. The thing that she does in this book that's rather brave is draw upon her own struggle with an Evangelical upbringing and an ongoing tense relationship with J.C. and The Big Guy. Heaven help us avoid having this sort of thing grow from one good book into a full-blown marketing subgenre, but if THE BIG LOVE catches on as it deserves to, be prepared for an onslaught of Cruci-Chix Lit.