Setting up readings/book signings for a new novel is always a very pleasant task, and for Under the Poppy there’s the added component of performance, a new boon. Shall we ask a floozy or two to sit in (or lie in, I guess, depending on the venue’s layout? (lieout?))? Should we get some Champagne? Every launch needs Champagne!  Why not a puppet MC?  Will I get my top hat back from the cleaner’s in time? And the musical component: there will be musical accompaniment (live, at the NYC reading); watch this space for eventual MP3s …. Being able to present a novel to its readers in this very personal way, this one-night-only moment, is to tie a lovely, gaudy, ephemeral bow around the whole, to offer a different kind of peek behind the curtain. Reading is performance. Writing is performance, is seduction, is a continuous flowing gesture of sleight-of-hand from “Once upon a time” to “happily ever after,” and if it’s done well it continues, a performance forever in the reader’s mind, whenever the book is recalled.

And if you should find yourself sitting next to a puppet, well, so much the better.