You wanted to lick the book? Wait til you meet the author.

I haven't seen him in years. Is he still fragile-looking, painfully reserved and delicately pretty?

Not even remotely, Victor. Except that he's definitely pretty.

And I didn't get "painfully reserved", either. The exchange at the Emerging Voices thing went along these lines:

Me: I think you ought to have two Pulitzer Prizes. Because really, K&K is a better book than Wonder Boys.

Him: Two Pulitzers?

Me: Definitely. Two.

Him: That's what I keep telling them!

All of that while bouncing the infant son. He's a serious, serious charmer.

Man, it's been years. I may have seen him maybe twice since the WB release party, but not terribly long after it.

Maybe the painfully reserved is the wrong phrase, but you know that sense you get off someone that, as friendly and upbeat as they're being, part of them is definitely elsewhere? I got that off him a lot. But then, I get it off a lot of writers.

I do remember him being a nice guy, though. And again, very pretty.

EDIT: Huh. Maybe "distant" is the word.

I just read Reema's copy of K & C. I liked it very much (it made me want to dig out the Steven Millhauser I own).

See, I didn't find him distant, or even elsewhere, but it would be hard to do that with a kicking three-week-old child in a papoose carrier around your neck. And Ayelet was the indrocuing element, so, his wife. Also, I'm a local fellow writer, for him. He teaches at Berkeley.

And here's Nic, so me, signing off.

OK, a wail for help. Crossposted - sort of - in Bitches.

Can anyone point me towards a picture, site, anything at all, of a stately home family crypt?

I just to know what it looks like, stairs down, interior layout. Next scene in Matty Groves is Char (daughter of the house) and her father down among the dead men, looking for a grave, and something nasty happening.

And the setting is the Leight-Arnold family crypt. And no one will tell me what theirs looks like. And damnitalltohell, I've even been a weekend guest at frellin' Castle Howard. But it didn't occur to me to ask John to show me the family's dead people, where they were stashed, I mean. Besides, at least one of them, Henry's fifth wife, had no head at the end.

But I need a crypt. For Callowen House. Soon, too.

Help? Acknowledgements at beginning of book would ensue, and maybe baked goods.

All the crypt references I could find were for Metairie or Savannah, not so helpful, I'm thinking. Although there's an outfit that will sell you a private family mausoleum with six crypts around a center vestibule, solid granite carved with roses around a bronze door. No? Sorry. I'll continue looking tomorrow.

Nice Bev. We loves our Bev.

Would it maybe be in the family's chapel?

DAMN it.

Going just from gothic-type novels and movies, I would think a family crypt would be on the grounds, but away from the house, while the family chapel would be in, or attached to the house. You actually could lay out your theoretical crypt exactly like the one in Welcome to the Hellmouth, a little larger or smaller as needed, and there's not a body could say you were wrong. It seems to be the default layout for all the ones I'm remembering, including Zeffirelli's R&J. The half-round ones tend to be in churches, below the nave, and reserved for saints or influential friends of the church.

I'll continue the hunt tomorrow. 'Night.

Deb, insent with quite a lot of links about family and chapel crypts. Some really good pictures in there, I think.