Sunday Times Magazine article — it was real and informative. So, sold books or not, which isn’t the goal, I do mean it; you’ll be great on tour.” He sits down, kisses his wife, says “It went lousy, a spoof if I’d been spoofing, a fiasco because I wasn’t,” breaks a roll, reporter pulls a chair up, sits down and turns on a tape recorder and says “Mr. Bermmeister,” and he says “Really, just want to eat, and everything I have to say about my work is in the work and that sort of standard writer thing, and the rest of it should be — how I’m now feeling — on my face,” and the reporter says “What I’d love are your spoken thoughts of how you feel tonight but not on a stage to a thousand people or in front of cameras and a dozen other newsmen, which become events and can alter the truth of what you have to say,” and he says “Well, great then, I feel great of course, what do you think?” and the reporter’s motioning with his hands “More, more,” and he says “Humbled also — not humbled, that’s bull, or at least for me, but something — but you see? I can’t speak about these things. My wife can do it better for me than I can but she won’t want to”—she’s shaking her head. “Or my editor, publisher”—they’re both waving him off—“or the waiter,” and he grabs the arm of the passing waiter, who says “Your main dish, sir? We brought it back, but I’ll bring it out now,” and he says “No, yes, I mean, I’d like my food, I’m starving, but talk to this reporter, tell him what vintage wine we’re having, how writers and their like probably tend to get smashed at these affairs — the free booze, lavish food, in the air all that perfume, the rich well-bred gentlefolk in their million-buck tuxes and skimpy gowns, fish that don’t swim, clams that don’t dry, jeez, what do you expect of us or at least me? — we’re night-on-the-town, go-on-a-toot kind of guys, a day off from heavy construction work and whistling at passing girls, you could say, but who like to overdo the laboriousness of their labors and their commonplaceness and bad manners, as you can see, even when they don’t win, if I’m making myself clear,” and the reporter says “I think I got the message,” and he says “Then you tell me,” and the reporter says “You know. But this is still a good chance, Robert, for a small book. We go to a large number of educated people — it’s public radio, syndicated — so good book buyers,” and he looks at the editor, she’s nodding, and the publisher, whose look and finger-pointing say “Anything she says goes,” and he says into the mike “Okay, truth is, I am humbled, honestly, or at least feel small in comparison to the largeness of the honor. It’s a fine thing to win, totally unexpected, a bigger shock than being nominated,” the reporter’s eyes are turned up to the ceiling as if this is all so trivial, “and I feel great about it. It may be the best moment of my writing life, in fact. Certainly the best thing that’s ever happened to my work and maybe in the order of my personal thrills or whatever you want to call them — excitements, kicks, gratifications, fications, bliss — it comes after the birth of my first child, then the second, but I’m talking about when they happened, the baby suddenly out. Then my marriage ceremony and after that when my wife said she’d marry me and then when I first learned she was pregnant the first time and then the publication, rather the phone call from my first publisher saying they were taking my first book, which was actually my fifth or sixth book-length manuscript but the first to be taken. And the order that tonight’s excitement comes in shouldn’t be after the birth of my first but after them all, ending with the first book’s acceptance and maybe even ending, and then comes tonight’s, with the time I got a telegram from my U.S. senator — I didn’t have a phone then, couldn’t afford one — saying I’d won an N.E.A. grant in fiction when I’d given up getting any recognition or money for my work and was almost dead broke, and I think, for the first of several times in my life, about ready to give the whole writing thing up,” and the reporter’s smiling now, got what he came for, and says “That’s wonderful, the twists life takes, then how things turn out; anything else?” and he’s about to say something — how this award’s particularly fulfilling, coming with a long complex book he didn’t think anyone would take and being published by a small press — when a waiter sets down his plate, and he thanks him and points to his glass with an expression “Some more?” and the waiter signals with his fingers to someone and a waitress hurries over and pours wine into his glass, and the reporter says “So you were about to tell me something else, Robert?” and he says “I was going to say how rewarding the award is in other ways. For instance that it makes my mother and kids and wife and her folks so happy — it will, when they hear it. My wife, of course, sitting right next to me, has. In fact, my kids, oh my gosh, I forgot — excuse me but you have enough, don’t you? — but watch what a good poppa I am for I gotta call and tell them I won before they go to sleep, otherwise they’ll never forgive me,” and his wife says “It isn’t too late?” and he says “If it is, the sitter will say so, and really,” to the reporter, “I also have to check up on the sitter to see she’s working out all right,” and leaves the room, foundation person is suddenly alongside and accompanies him, and he says “Really, you don’t have to, I’ll be right back, and what good am I in there anyway now? And they won’t let you into the men’s room, and I think I can find the phones — where are they,” looking around the corridor, “you know?” and she takes him to a bank of them, stands a little off to the side, and he says “Really, this is personal and I tend to talk loud — I won’t fly away — my wife’s still there and our coats are checked,” and she goes and he calls the hotel. “They’re sleeping,” the sitter says, “—no they’re not, they’re up, must’ve heard your rings or me talking,” and his daughter gets on, “You win, Daddy?” and he says “Believe it or not, kid, I did,” and she shouts “Piers, Daddy won, we can go to FAO Schwarz tomorrow, get up, let’s celebrate — can we, Daddy?” and he says “Okay, for a moment. Tell the sitter, Miss Marlene, or I will, you can each have one of those overpriced cans of ginger ale in the little fridge — she too, but nothing else,” and while his daughter’s telling the sitter about the sodas and bag each of nuts or chips, “my father said so,” his son gets on and says “I love you too, Dada, you have very good luck,” and he says “I know, amazing; the babysitter nice?” and his son says “Very; she tells great stories,” and he says “Good. Now kiss-kiss for the two of you from Mommy and me and don’t eat all the chips or nuts right before sleep — bad tummy stuff — and put Miss Marlene on,” and the sitter says “My felicitations, mister — we prayed for it here, the three of us in an innocent untheological way. Now it’ll make it more troublesome getting them to bed again but, considering what caused it, it’s worth it and we shall persevere and win — you’ll be here by 11:30, please?” and he calls his mother, she says hello, and he says “It’s me, Mom, Robert, did I wake you?” and she says “So-so, I could feel better. Anything wrong with you or your family? — it’s so late,” and he says “I did wake you then, huh?” and she says “No, I was dozing, what’s wrong, the children okay?” and he says “I told you I’d call if I won,” and she says “Won what?” and he says “The book prize,” and she says “I must have forgot — for what?” and he says “My book, the novel, Scorch,” and she says “The one you gave me? I love it. I’m going to start reading it tomorrow. I’ve been a little out of sorts lately to start it till now. But I show it to everyone every time they come here and they all think it’s beautiful looking and it’s so big, they call it a brick, everyone,” and he says “Well listen, Mom, they had a contest — I’m saying, a gala, tonight, this foundation did, with an awards ceremony at the Plaza. I told you but you must’ve forgot, there were five nominees and, you know, I sent you articles about it — the