Very easily, Deb. My cousin and I were saying today how we're at the age where we're going to quit counting years and start counting obituaries to mark time.

I just wrote to Pete Townshend, asking for a blurb for Kinkaid.

Talk about fucking ghosts from my past - dude.

I'll just be in the corner, sucking my thumb and whimpering. I wrote:

(taking a deep breath)

Hey there, Pete,

A long time ago - mid-seventies, in fact - we met a couple of times. Yes, I know, that would be along with seven million other people. We had mutual friends, though, and one in particular.

Here's the thing. I'm a novelist - my current mystery series, Haunted Ballads, is out on St. Martins Minotaur. These deal with a player of traditional music, and ties into various Child Ballad song titles (see below, if you're angelic about it and decide to read that far down). They're mystery/ghost story crossovers, on the literary side (or so I'm told), rather than the commercial side.

I've just begun book four of a brand new series, the Kinkaid Chronicles, and these are a very different thing. The narrator and protagonist, JP Kinkaid, is a South London-born, 54-year old ex-pat with multiple sclerosis. As the premier session guitarist in 70's London, he was invited to join a megastar band called Blacklight, and did, becoming their second guitarist. The books are a very loving look at rock and roll, both in the present day and through his memories.

It's also a chronicle of growth and coming of age, in a profession and world that can muffle reality. There are some very big themes in here: love, loss, family, loyalty, adulthood. And since I know you're a Michael Chabon fan, I thought these might appeal. I'm actually hoping for a blurb from Michael on these; he's an acquaintance of mine and his wife, Ayelet, is a friend. She and I have done book signings together.

Anyway......my question is, do you think I could possibly get a blurb from you? I know you guys are going out on the road for a long stretch, but hell, if you get bored and want some reading, say the word and I'll send along a Word attachment of any of the three books, or just the synopses, or any part thereof. And I think you're actually mentioned in the third book, "London Calling", which deals with racism and how music deals with it.

By the way, if you see your way to saying yes, you'll find a familiar character in the second book, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps": a legendary session bassist, who dies of complications from progressive multiple sclerosis. I met Ronnie Lane a couple of times, and since I have MS myself, I can write this with authority.

Good grief, this email got long-winded, but I swear, the books aren't. I was just nervous.

Let me know, if you get a chance? And happy touring. I seem to recall that the Bay Area was never your favourite place to play, but if you do, I'll be there.

Cheers,

Deborah Grabien

hunches into small tight ball and whimpers

It would be great if he did read and blurb!

I hope that he does.

Removing thumb from mouth long enough to say that Marlene wants to try FSG. Total long shot - Farrar Strauss are total elistist snobs - but you never know and I've met one of their top editors, and he introduced me to the entire St. Martins/FSG sales staff at BEA in Los Angeles.

Do this in remembrance of me

Where is the love that will save us, now?
Be still and listen, for it beats within you.
Find a Muslim, a Jew, a young Christian and an old sceptic,
Take them by the hands and look deeply into their eyes.
Say the words: "You are my sister, my uncle, my grandma, my beloved.
You wear the face of the angels, of all that is good in the world."
And dare in your heart to make it true.
"What is love?" you ask me, and I have but one answer:
"The only hope we have, and the gift we must not forget."

Karl, that is gorgeous.

Karl, you remind me of that scene in Ghandi, where Mohandas told the grieving Islamic father to find a Hindu child who had lost his parents and take him into his home as his own son--and raise him as a Hindu, for that way he would truly heal the wounds the war had left.

Although what you wrote isn't that, exactly, I think it bears the same spirit, and the same possibility for healing.

I can't imagine devoting decades of my life to throwing off the Raj without violence, only to have my home and people be swept up in the violent passions of Partition. My heart would have broken; I wonder how Mr Gandhi avoided bitterness.

"Love your neighbour" is so easy to say. I've heard neighbour-loving words spoken in synagogues, Buddhist temples, more pagan gatherings than I can shake a smudging stick at, Anglican and Catholic cathedrals, and even the little community church in East Tennessee that my mother used to jokingly refer to as "The Church of God of the Upraised Fist, Reformed." I've listened to an American convert to Islam tell me why she covers her head, and been delighted at her wit and her too-accurate readings of the reactions of her co-workers. And been horrified and relieved with a Hindu colleague as she told me that her family survived the tsunami in Sri Lanka, but that everyone they knew had lost someone.

And how lucky I am, to know these people, because it only takes one to show every "All (of this group) are (adjective) ... well, these people have a different culture ... they don't think the way we do ... they don't understand anything but violence" excuse for the shoddy little sham it is.

Sorry, I'm going on and on here. Mostly what I wanted to say was: I'm glad you liked it, Sail, and Bev, I'm extraordinarily chuffed and honoured to be mentioned in the same breath with a luminary like Mr Gandhi.

Wow, a girl's away for a couple of months and not only do gorgeous drabbles pile up but MORE BUFFISTAS HAVE BOOKS COMING OUT!!!

Congrats, Gus, Allyson, and Jilli.

(Anybody else I missed? Damn you people have shiny brains.)

Aw, Karl, So modest... but it makes me wonder if Gandhi wasn't also a big flirt in his younger days. I hate my *actual* neighbors...they report on us. Metaphorically, I may have a better track record.