So, LOVE AND GHOST LETTERS is finally here. I celebrated with a few friends, with champagne (thanks, Suzanne and Jim), and with some serious Cuban food. Toss in a little Celia on the CD player and it was home.

I'm glad to hear from people who have already begun reading the novel. Glad to hear, especially, that they are enjoying it. I read from the book for the first time the other night, and even though my nose was stuffy from allergies, and I felt a little shaky overall, it was a beautiful feeling. My God, this book actually exists. It sits on a shelf. It gathers dust. It cracks a bit when you open it for the first time. It even smells like a book.

A few people have asked me about book sales. Innocuous questions like, "So, how's it going?" are like tiny pincers to the heart and brain. Really, I'd rather ignore it all. I know I have to hustle a bit, but I'm not one for hustling. I'm ga-ga over the book's smell, for goodness' sake. My senses are too busy to worry whether Barnes and Noble has LOVE AND GHOST LETTERS in stock (but bug the hell out of them if they don't, would ya?). Doris Lessing once said about writers: "Without me the literary industry would not exist...all this vast proliferating edifice is because of this small, patronized, put-down, underpaid person." I suppose she's right.

But never mind all that. Please come out to say hello at Books and Books in Coral Gables next Monday night. I might even let you smell my book.