May 2003

Hello, my name is Magda, and I am a Nextaholic. It’s been 5 weeks since I had the opportunity to meet Jasper Fforde. This is my story.

When I first heard that Jasper would be touring the U.S. this spring, I hoped fervently that there would be a signing near enough and timed such that I could attend. I had dressed as Thursday Next for Halloween last year, complete with a home-sewn wingless toy dodo. I’d talked about the books enough to cause at least three of my friends and coworkers to buy and read The Eyre Affair just so they’d know what on earth I was going on about. I had been a regular on the Fforde Fforum since I had discovered it last October. Jasper, who occasionally lurks on the Fforum when he has time, had even asked to include my dodo on his Readers’ Contributions page. So it would be safe to say that I was a fairly serious Fforde Ffan (is that an oxymoron?). When the tour schedule was announced, I discovered that the nearest signing was going to be in Dayton, Ohio, about 200 miles due south from where I live in Michigan. Not as close as I would have liked, but given the size of the US, it could certainly have been far worse. And as I pointed out to an acquaintance who asked why on earth I would go all the way to Dayton for a book signing, Jasper was coming all the way from Wales, so by comparison my trip was relatively short.

So on Monday, April 14, I left work after half a day to begin my pilgrimage south. I brought along my books (naturally) and both the large dodo I had made for Halloween and a smaller second dodo I’d made the day before as a gift for Jasper. Three and a half hours later, I arrived at the bookstore, met my friend Phil (who lives in Columbus) there, and we ate dinner nearby. We then browsed the bookstore (always an enjoyable pastime) until the chairs were set up, and people were starting to sit in them, at which point I fetched my bag of books and dodos from the car and grabbed seats in the front row.

By 7pm when the talk was scheduled to begin, the chair to my left was still unoccupied, so I pulled my large dodo out of my bag and plopped her onto the empty seat beside me--to the amusement of the other dozen or so people waiting. A few minutes thereafter, Jasper and Mari arrived and he was duly introduced. I was terribly surprised and pleased when he then stepped up to the podium, looked at me (and my dodo) in the front row, and addressed me by name and said he was glad I’d brought my Pickwick. Very cool!

He then began by reading us the passage from Lost in a Good Book in which Thursday’s father takes her back in time to try to save Landen, specifically the lovely, vivid description of what it’s like to watch 6 months speed by. He referred to this as getting the boring part out of the way, but I don’t think any of us found listening to him read particularly boring. He then spent more than an hour answering questions from the audience, which was small, but appreciative. We heard a bit about his background, his unpublished books, what his office is like (with the window behind him rather than in front, which helps reduce the amount of time spent staring out it instead of writing), the process of getting his books published, a few hints about what fictional characters will and won’t be showing up in The Well of Lost Plots due to copyright issues, and even how his own mother’s cooking compares to Thursday’s mum’s. He both answered the questions and included funny anecdotes and intriguing tangents. He was articulate, engaging, and amusing, none of which should come as a surprise to anyone who has read his books.

A few bits I remember in particular:

On Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: This was the first book Jasper read on his own just for pleasure. It is one of those wonderful books you can read at different ages and get different things out of. He hopes that his own books will also fall into that category for people. As a side note, Queen Victoria reputedly also read Alice’s Adventures, was amused, and asked for all of the author’s other works to be delivered. She apparently received a stack of books full of quadratic equations (since Lewis Carroll was, by profession, a mathematician).

On Jane Austen: She was, Jasper stated, the Stephen King of the 19th century. After receiving blank looks from the audience after making this particular statement, he explained that she wrote horror novels. As in: ‘Oh dear, I shall have to learn to survive on a mere 400 pounds per annum--oh horror!’ or ‘I may not marry well--oh horror!’ and so on.

On trying to get published: In an unsuccessful early conversation with an agent, Jasper was once asked ‘Where would you like to see your books shelved?’ meaning: ‘You write strange cross-genre books which are unmarketable’. He replied that he’d like to see them in the bestseller section (thus convincing said agent that he was not only unmarketable, but cheeky as well).

On actually getting published: The first person at Hodder (Jasper’s British publisher) who read The Eyre Affair loved the book, but didn’t have a clue how they could market it. So they made a few copies and passed them around to other folks at the company, asking ‘Am I nuts, or should we buy this book?’ They read it, and said ‘No, you’re not nuts, we should buy this book, but I don’t know how we’ll market it.’ So Hodder ended up spending most of the promotional budget on extra proof and review copies, and counted on word of mouth to sell the book (which appears to have worked).

After the Q. & A. had finished, we lined up by rows to get our books signed. When I got to the front of the line, Jasper immediately surprised me again by asking after my mother, whose encounter with a deer while driving had been mentioned on the Fforum the day before. After startledly assuring him that mom was fine (although her car and the deer hadn’t fared quite as well), I presented my Pickwick and asked Jasper to sign her foot, which now reads ‘Jasper V1.2 (Plock!)’. I also explained that she had apparently fraternized with some feral dodos in the wilds of Michigan, and presented the little brown dodo chick, saying that we were hoping he’d be willing to give it a good home. He appeared very pleased with it, told Mari they’d have to find a spot for it in the office, and asked that I sign its foot. Along with signing my books and inserting postcards, he also was kind enough to present me with a Goliath Corporation ID badge, filled out with my full name and identifying me as part of Goliath’s ‘Soft Toy Division’. Once the signing line had gone through, Mari took pictures of Phil and I (and the dodos) with Jasper, and I paid for my new book and began the drive back north.

I arrived home some time after 1am, far too wired to sleep. I instead headed for the computer to post photos (I love digital cameras) and a brief account of the signing on the Fforde Fforum. I did make it to work the next morning, but I wasn’t precisely at my most productive. Over the next few days, I discovered that Jasper had named the small dodo ‘Alan’, and I was tickled to hear that he had been sighted at several of the later stops on the US book tour. So was meeting Jasper and hearing him speak about himself and his books worth the trip? Absolutely. And I suspect I’m not alone in that opinion, since everyone else who popped up on the Fforum after attending one of Jasper’s US talks appeared to be similarly impressed, using words like ‘remarkable’, ‘brilliant’, ‘amazing’, ‘inspiring’, ‘captivating’ and ‘great fun’. So if Jasper visits your neck of the woods, I would strongly encourage you to go see him. If you enjoy his books, you’re bound to find the author equally entertaining.

Photos with Jasper Fforde taken by Mari Roberts. Photos of Jasper Fforde taken by "Magda".