Thursday 10 March 2011

To Cut A Long Story Short.

I seem to be on this path of reminiscence, lately. One of my most recent blogposts was about the Incidence perfume, which I related to my father's memory. And this blogpost is going to go much along the same tangent - not about perfume, but about a writer.
So, like the title of one of Jeffrey Archer's short story collections goes, to cut a long story short, I met and interviewed a world-famous author today. And if you haven't guessed it already, it was Archer himself, who was in the city (as part of a nationwide tour to release his new novel Only Time Will Tell). 
He's rude and sarcastic, and even has that typical dry British humour, but he is amazing nonetheless, questionable personal life notwithstanding.
My father introduced me to Archer's writing when I was about 12 or 13. I even remember the particular story - it was One Man's Meat, the story with three different endings, from the collection Twelve Red Herrings. And while I have read a couple of his novels, I still prefer the short stories because of their masterpiece twists at the end.
It's an experience to come this close to a man whose writing I'd hugely admired. And I am kicking myself for being the world's biggest idiot - right when I was walking out of the auditorium, he was walking in with another man, there was no one else around and I should have asked him to take a picture with me! But I froze and gawked at him like a complete loser. He smiled at me and walked on. What an opportunity to miss. Still. Memories are very solid things and maybe someday I shall tell my children that I interviewed Lord Jeffrey Archer himself!
For the meantime, since my fondly-imagined children aren't in the picture yet, I shall content myself with thinking that my father would be so proud if he could see me now. He loved Archer's writing, and to think his daughter actually interviewed him today.
It would be his 52nd birthday tomorrow, and I think this actually makes a great present. Cheers to you, Height. Happy Birthday.

3 comments:

little boxes said...

Happy Birthday to him!
and he sure is happy to see you do so wonderfully well in life :)

Magically Bored said...

Thank you, Little Boxes. :)

dreamy said...

:)