Author Wins Audience, Then Sells Some Books

You take a chance when you go listen to an author read from one of his or her books.

Liking the writing doesn’t mean you’ll like the writer. And discovering that one of your heroes is a falsely modest twit tends to complicate one’s appreciation of the artist’s work.

But the 80 or so people who showed up at Auntie’s Bookstore Thursday night to hear James Lee Burke caught a break. They got to hear a true storyteller in action.

With the practiced inflections and urgency of a theatrical performance, he read a couple of extended passages from his new novel, “Burning Angel.”

Applause. Applause.

But it was after he’d finished the actual reading that the part-time Montana resident seemed to win over his audience.

Dressed in a dark blue suit and a white shirt with an open collar, Burke looked, really looked, at the label-defying group seated before him for the first time. And he shook off his going-through-the-motions book-tour glaze.

Let’s hear it for question and answer sessions.

“The truth is, my life is an enormous yawn,” he said. “That’s why I have to write these books.”

He set up and delivered several laughter-launching stories, including one about his parochial school childhood. He had Auntie’s upstairs sounding like a comedy club on a good night.

His actual reading had lasted only 15 minutes. But few seemed to mind.

Leaning into the lectern and making the microphone pop, the slightly hoarse Louisiana native smiled like someone who had been heels-first about going to the party but suddenly found himself having a good time.

You didn’t have to know anything about his books to share the feeling.

Still, one drawback of hearing your own voice for long stretches might be that you start to lose your listening skills. Because Burke flat out failed to answer a couple of interesting questions. One was about his feel for the South and another about class in American society.

“Oh, thank you very much,” the novelist announced 40 minutes after he had first appeared, letting everyone know it was time to move on to the next stage of the evening.

Time to go downstairs and sell some books and sign them.

The dance of audience members jockeying for face time with the author was about to begin.

, DataTimes MEMO: Being There is a weekly feature that visits gatherings in the Inland Northwest.