Unpublished Writers, Please Don't Visit Book Expo America or You Just Might Get Shot at Dawn.

1.
I love book fairs.

The first hour I always walk around like a happy idiot, enjoying the different stands, and the hustle and bustle of book sluts from around the world. The second hour I still like being there, I smile at strangers and admire their cleavage. The third hour I start getting sarcastic. The fourth hour I want to kill everybody.

Yes, BookExpo America (BEA09) is great and exhausting at the same time. There are too many self-help books for obese soccer moms. And everybody has an agenda, including me. I'm here to let people know about The Tsar's Dwarf and my fall tour. I'm meeting up with event managers, pretending to be less obnoxious than I am. But hey, there's a word for somebody like me. I'm networking. When I force the postcard of my book into the hands of innocent bystanders, I could be accused of assault, but no, I'm just networking.

However, the chance meetings are the most fascinating. When I'm enjoying an overpriced cup of coffee ($3.25 drip that tastes as if it just came out of some body's ass), a woman sits down next to me. She turns out to be a literary agent from New York with a fetish for Pontus The Penguin, an unknown Danish cartoon figure from my childhood. The agent's own name is pretty cartoonish, too. Renee Zuckerbrot. That means sugar bread in German. No wonder I like her, especially since she knows all the biggies in Danish literature: Hans Christian Andersen, Isak Dinesen, and Pontus The Penguin.


2.
At the book fair everybody is wearing a badge.

If you're blue, you're a book seller. If you're green you're a librarian. And if you're pink, you're a pedophile. I'm yellow, and my badge says Published Author which cracks me up. Why not Neurotic Novelist, Pornographic Poet or Scumbag With a Computer?

When I ask My Favorite Book Seller from Utah why they use that term, she explains that last year the publishers were upset at the many unpublished authors who sneaked into this professional fair and shoved their manuscripts in their faces. So unpublished writers (with all their typos and misguided ambitions) are not allowed at the Expo. They'll be hung outside The Penguin stand, and Barnes & Nobles will fire the first shot.

3.
John Irving is on the big stage talking about writing and play writing. He dabbles in both and loves going back and forth between Hollywood and the real world. "Have you noticed that all the great screenplays are adapted?" he asks. "That's because they're based on real writing."

Take that, Tinseltown.

John Irving is probably the most beloved American author in Denmark. He used to have the same Danish publisher as me, Lindhardt & Ringhof, but that shouldn't be held against him. Other American authors who are popular in my neck of the woods would be Paul Auster and Stephen King - literary twins if I ever heard of any.

I haven't read Irving for years, but I was quite fond of A Prayer for Owen Meany and The World According to Garp.

Actually, everybody seems to like John Irving in Denmark, except for the literary snobs who love saying things like "the plot is dead". Oh my God, is it???? When did it leave us for That Plot Heaven In The Sky??? Did I miss its plotless funeral? Seriously, I think you have to be the proud owner of a PhD to utter things of such nonsense. "The plot is dead" is the equivalent of saying that "love is reactionary" or "porn models don't get herpes."

4.
I'll be back with more Expo news if I survive the next few days. You never know because the fair takes place at 34th Street and 11. Avenue. Hey, I didn't even know there was an 11th Avenue on Manhattan. Talking about living a life in fiction ...


You can also follow my pathetic life on Twitter. My name is @danish_novelist.


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Meltdown Diary, Part III: Mellow Mormons and Delightful Danes in Unbelievable Utah.

Friday, May 15

I want to become a Mormon.

I mean, how can I let down the cute girls on Temple Square, showing me around the Tabernacle, flirting with me in that Mormon way of theirs, promising me eternal life with my family and my cats of choice? Hey, they'll even send me a Bible. And if I give them my address, some Mormon hooligans will show up at my door and talk to me about God until I'm blue in the face.

But I like the Mormons though. At the museum they have a replica of Bertel Thorvaldsen's Jesus sculpture from Rome. Since Thorvaldsen is from my country, am I allowed to make the assumption that the Creator of All Things is Danish? So many other nations claim Him. Now, it's our turn. Famous Danish products: Lego, Ecco shoes ... and Jesus.

My guide in The Church of Latter Day Mitt Romneys is a delightful Australian who wants to go to Copenhagen, since we're the proud owners of an Australian crown princess. That's right, our Crown Prince Frederik married Mary from Tasmania. She's beautiful, intelligent and skinny. And she's had the pleasure of shaking my hand once. Not that she would remember, but since this is my blog, I'm allowed to brag about it.

I leave the temple in Salt Lake City with God in my nostrils. It's a beautiful day. This is the last stop on my book tour, and things have started off well. In the shuttle I forgot my orange sweater, but the driver returned it and didn't even want a tip.

"Why?" I asked him. "Is there something wrong with you?"

"No, I don't want a tip because you made my day."

Then the nice man told me that he'd overheard me trash talk Dan Brown's novel Angel and Demons (I said to a lady that it's the worst novel I've read in years in terms of characterization and language. Most of my writing students could write better prose)

"I think it's awful as well," the driver whispered , "but it was such a relief hearing a professional writer say that, so I just want to thank you for making my day."

When I get out of the van, I decide I like Salt Lake City!

From my reading at The Danish Rebild Society in Hope Gallery, Salt Lake City, Utah. (Formerly known as The Rebild National Park Society - no wonder they got rid of that name. Everybody thought it was spelled Rebuild, which would make it some kind of kinky construction company instead of a group celebrating everything Danish like Hans Christian Andersen and red herring)


Saturday, May 16, 1.30 pm

I have two readings and presentations in town. At the Hope Gallery, The Danish Rebild Society is ready to hear about The Tsar's Dwarf - and to munch on delicious Danish smørrebrød. 45 immigrants have gathered, most of them Mormons. They're happy to talk with a "real" Dane, even though he drools on people in the first row.

"You should be on Oprah," a nice lady says afterward, probably because I've made a fool of myself as always. "She would love you."

I tell the lady that every writer wants to be on Oprah. My publisher sent her The Tsar's Dwarf when it came out, but so did 2.315 other publishers and agents that day. It would actually be a miracle of Mormonic proportions if Opera has ever heard of it.

Oh by the way, if you read this, Oprah, I'm available on October 22 between 2 and 3.30 pm, but you have to hurry, because the Pope wants me, too.

Saturday, May 16, 6.30 pm

In the evening, a wonderful Danish couple is kind enough to drive me to my next gig at The King's English Book Store. The two of them came over to Utah in the early fifties and have two sons, Dan and Mark (!) Talking about Divine inspiration! Soon I hope to meet up with a couple from Sweden who has named their kids Volvo and Ikea.

Outside King's English Book Store in Salt Lake City, the best bookseller in Utah.


Saturday, May 16, later.

Is it possible to have a crush on a book store? Maybe not, but King's English is the kind of store you want to cuddle with. It's small and adorable with hidden rooms, narrow staircases and books by unpronounceable authors. But you also feel like saying, "don't worry, little book store. Uncle Barnes & Nobles isn't going to eat you." The US needs more independent book sellers - you know, the kind of places that are interested in other novels than Angels and Demons.

My reading is taking place outside, since it's a beautiful spring evening. 12 people and 2 bluebirds are at hand, and I enjoy myself immensely, even though the bluebirds try to poop on me.

Afterward, the event manager tells me I should go to Expo America in New York, the biggest book fair in the country. I talk to my publisher, Hawthorne Books and they think it's a good idea, so I'll be going for a weekend. Actually, I can't wait to shove The Tsar's Dwarf down the throat of the people I run into. I can be quite persuasive, especially when I hold a gun in my other hand,

Robert Redford's Sundance lodge in Utah. Here you can definitely find God and some Hollywood photos of drunk stars. Strange choice from a man who hates paparazzi.

Sunday, May 17

On my last day in Utah, Pia Ringheim Jensen, my hostess, takes me on a tour of the beautiful state. We visit Park City and Sundance - the homes of the famed film festival. We drop by Robert Redford as well. Not the actor himself (he doesn't care for Danish novelists), but his resort in the mountains - a cool unpretentious place with a great view of snow capped mountains.

I actually saw Redford a few weeks back - in a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin where he was the keynote speaker for a conference for The Progessive. He came out of an elevator with an open shirt revealing five chest hairs that he, honestly, should donate to charity. Unfortunately, I didn't hear Redford's speech since I was attending SASS, a conference for restless Scandinavians.

After walking around Redford's resort admiring photos from Hollywood, we head back towards Salt Lake City. On the way, we see an impressive collection of dead deer and raccoons on the highway. I almost start to cry, but my hostess tells me that wildlife is hit by cars all the time - as if that would make me feel better.

Well, according to the Mormons, families stay together in Heaven forever, so maybe that means you can bring a few dead raccoons as well? If that's the case, I'll definitely convert to The Church of Latter-Day Mitt Romneys.

And hey, these wonderful Mormons even get off on Danish sculptures!



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Is Christopher Hitchens a Messenger From God?

I just read God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens.

Since I'm a believer I didn't expect to like this onslaught on religion, but I actually loved the book. It's well written, funny, provocative, and humanistic to the bone. Christopher Hitchens shows that atheists often are more "religious" (moral) than believers - and more tolerant than the people who claim they've found the "Truth". Hey, at least atheist don't condemn others to Hell, they don't cut off your clitoris (at least, not for religious reasons), and they're happy to put their teeth into a good pork chop, right?

However, make no mistake about it, Hitchens is as dogmatic himself as the religions he criticizes. His absolute "Truth" is that religion poisons everything. That's not correct, religion only poisons 88% of things. (I'm ready to negotiate this, it could be 87%)

Hitchens also seems to overlook that the world is full of people who carry their God within. They shouldn't be blamed for the mess the religions have made. It's not every Christian who uses the Bible as a baseball bat. And it's not all Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus who want to show others the "right" way. A lot of believers just live their values - their faith gives them inner strength and make them better people. So the problem is not God at all, it's organized religion.

However, Christopher Hitchen's book is an extremely important work. It's more necessary than a lot of the poop you hear Sunday mornings from pastors with face lifts. And it's definitely much more honest than Bill Maher's mockumentary Religulous. that used all believers as a punching bag for his wit

But the world does need to be reminded how much damage religions still do today - how most wars are caused by people who think their "Truth" is superior. So no, God Is Not Great ain't a work of the Devil. It's more likely a work of God.

Yes, I see it now: While Christopher Hitchens was sitting in his study, God descended on him, angels whispered in his ears, saints led his pen. Who knows, maybe God even supplied Hitchens with his Scotch to calm him down (and with cigarettes to soothe his nerves) because they knew that the world of faith needed a provocative slap in the face.

So without realizing it, Christopher Hitchens, the rationalist, has written a spiritual manifest. It's not only a Bible for people of the Atheist faith, it's also a work for the millions of believers who are suspicious of organized religion.

Most often God and religion have very little to do with each other. It's this point that the angry, but brilliant Christopher Hitchens doesn't seem to get.

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Meltdown Diary, Part II: From Nipple Free Madison to the Sea Lions of San Francisco.

Friday, May 1, 16.40.
"I've heard Denmark has gone bad. Pornography all over. No laws against prostitution ... drugs everywhere. That's what my customers tell me, man."

I stare at my cab driver. I've just arrived in Madison, Wisconsin for the annual SASS conference for Scandinavians and I'm on the way to the hotel. Outside the sun shines, a very un-Scandinavian occurrence if you ask me.

The cabdriver continues: "And you got nudity on TV ... nipples in prime time. Denmark has gone bad, that's what I hear, man."

I nod my head. It's all true. Danish TV is all about nipples. Instead of reporting about American war crimes, Islamic radicals, and Obama's water dog, Danish TV shows nipples. We have nipples for breakfast, nipples for lunch, and nipples in the Evening News. No wonder that a lot of foreigners consider Denmark a paradise.

The cab driver keeps on talking and I'm reminded why I usually avoid taxis. When the cab driver has finished his monologue, I try to correct him.

"Actually, the Denmark you describe is the Denmark of the 70s. There is less pornography in Denmark than in the US and our laws against prostitution are very harsh. Our problem today is totally different. It's the increasing racism."

"You have a lot of Muslims, don't you?"

"Yes" I nod.

"They want to take over the world, man. You have to fight those bastards."

I sigh and change the subject. Actually, the cab driver seems like a nice guy, I just want to avoid a lecture on the importance of a nipple free Wisconsin.


Saturday, May 1,
The SASS conference is a wet dream for ambitious academics and desperate grad students looking for jobs. The problem is that there aren't too many Scandinavian departments in the US. For some strange reason the Americans prefer learning Spanish instead of Norwegian. Get your priorities straight, Yanks. Why go to Acapulco when you can get soaked in Oslo?

However at SASS, you can hang out with great people and listen to exciting papers like "The Importance of Caramelized Onions in Sami Literature" or how about this crowd pleaser, “Scandinavian Influences on Anthroponyms and Toponyms in Southern Utah in The Late Nineteen Century." I'm still drooling over this smorgasbord of Necessary Knowledge.

Unfortunately, there's no pornography at SASS. I should have invited my cab driver.

Monday, May 4.
I'm back in rainy Portland. I love everything about the place, except the weather. But I'm in for a shock. "We have mice," my pale girlfriend tells me. They seem to have entered our apartment without a visa (like a lot of people I know) and have taken the liberty of pooping on our stove.

"Why do you think they poop there?" I ask "Are they making a statement about my cooking?"

My pale girlfriend nods happily. She shall remain nameless until she gets a tan.


Wednesday, May 6
What a relief. We find out that we don't have mice after all. It's just rats.


Thursday, May 7
I'm just kidding of course.




Friday, May 8
On to San Francisco for another reading. God, I'm envious of my own life. I'm the happiest pusher in the world, traveling around with my book, running into the greatest people.

Here in the Bay Area my hosts ask me if I mind staying at an apartment of a friend who has gone to Europe. Then they have the audacity of putting me up at a place overlooking Alcatraz, Telegraph Hill, and the Bay Bridge. I'm living inside a panoramic postcard. From my bed I see everything, even the people who try to jump off the bridge. "Please don't do it," I shout, "let me get my camera first."

My hosts even throw me a party with gorgeous people. "Why are you so damn nice to me?" I ask Ashley who used to be one of my writing students.

Ashley says something so sweet it almost makes me cry. Her sister Paige ain't too shabby in the compliment department either.

I celebrate the evening by getting drunk on the weakest gin & tonic in Nob Hill. My drinking days are long gone. These days I'm more a soy milk kind of guy.


The world's tallest novelist doing his thing on Nob Hill.


Saturday, May 9, 6.14
Oh yes, the reading of The Tsar's Dwarf goes well. It takes place at Gallery Cafe on Mason with cable cars driving by. I would lie if I claimed there was a big crowd - but who cares? I sign six books and go back to my apartment watching the sun rise and lesbians eating strawberries. God, why do I deserve such happiness? People are dying of swine flu, and I'm living it up on Russian Hill - very appropriate when you consider the title of my novel.



Saturday, May 10, 11.22
I've told my hosts that I'll never leave the apartment. I'm going to chain myself to the bed. Then they can drop by and breastfeed me. I'm a human being, I have rights!

Sunday, May 11
In the morning I walk down to Pier 39 to say hi to the sea lions. That's one of my favorite things to do in SFO. However, I'm not a big fan of Fisherman's Wharf. It's Disneyland for tourists, the kind of place you want to avoid unless you're in love with tour boats and obese Canadians. But I adore the sea lions. They smell to high heaven, but so do most tuna sandwiches. I count 64 sea lions lying on top of each other. Unfortunately, none of them came to my reading.



Monday, May 12, midnight
Tomorrow I go back to Portland and my wonderful class at PSU. I'm teaching a course called Gods, Astrology and Reincarnation: Spiritual Themes in Literature. I've given my students the choice of receiving an A or instant Spiritual Enlightenment. Most have opted for the former, I'm sad to say.

Friday I fly to Salt Lake City to become a Mormon. That's the last stop on my on and off book tour. Stay tuned!

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Meltdown Diary: World Voices and My Grandfather's Ghost

The World Voices literary festival in New York was great.

I was official blogger for American PEN. I got to write 7 blogs for its website, shake the hand of Salman Rushdie, and best of all, I almost got mugged in Brooklyn. What more can a man ask for? Well, perhaps meeting his grandfather's ghost but more about that later.

160 writers from 45 countries descended on the Big Apple. Here's an excerpt from my Meltdown Diary.

Tuesday, 9.05
New York is drinking ice tea. So would you if you were here. East Village is soaking in the sun and tonight I'm going to my first World Voices event, The Literary Film Feast at Instituto Cervantes.

10.10
Writers are ridiculous. We walk into book stores looking for our own novels. When we don't find them, we go into meltdown mode. We head up to the desk and demand that they order the book. We scream and shout like Italians. In protest we start signing books by Stephen King or Shakespeare. The book store calls the police: two sweaty policemen arrive and put us in handcuffs; we spend the night in straight jackets shouting, "you should buy my books, dammit buy my goddamn books."

10.15
This is exactly why I don't go into book stores any more.

11.10
BREAKING NEWS: The Statue of Liberty has swine flue. Evacuate New York, blame the Mexicans and most important ... overreact!

14.45
I'm a very happy man but at rare occasions, life pisses me off. I'm not here Sunday to meet up with Sebastian Barry. I know the great Irish writer a little. We met at a literary conference in Cognac, France two years ago. We both had books coming out in French. When we started talking, I had no idea he was a famous writer. He had no idea I wasn't.

14.02
If you haven't read A Long Long Way you should. It's a damn masterpiece. You should also get hold of The Secret Scripture that almost won The Booker prize this year. That ain't too shabby, either.

14.04
Please don't tell Sebastian I wrote this. It will definitely go to his head.

23.o9
Finally I get the New York experience all tourists dream of. It's late at night in Brooklyn. I'm about to enter the platform of a subway station. A guy comes up to me and says: "If you get on that train, I'm going to fuck you up good, you hear?"

I stop, not knowing what to do.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you. Gimme your money, you Motherfucker or I'm gonna fuck you up good, you hear?"

I decide I have three options. I can use The Mother Theresa approach, "Oh my dearest child, you've drifted from the Path. Turn to Jesus Christ ..." Or I could do The Therapist Approach. "Start breathing, my friend. Let's sit down and talk about this, okay?" Or I can do The Martin Scorcese. "You get out of my fucking way, you fuck. Don't you fuck with me, you fucking fuck."

I go for option four. I run.


Wednesday, April 29. Midnight
Life is a funny four letter word.

At Wednesday's party for the writers at World Voices I ran into Meir Shalev, the Israeli author. I'd seen him on a panel earlier where he had made a wonderful impression, but apart from that I knew nothing about him. But after talking to the man for less than a minute, I found out that he has met my Jewish Danish grandfather!!!

My totally unknown grandfather. From a small town in Denmark. Far from New York and Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, how weird is that?

All this came to light just because I told Shalev that my grandfather was born in Safed and was abducted by a Danish missionary, ending up in my cold Scandinavian country as a frightened six year old.

"Yes," Meir Shalev told me, "I've heard that story before. He was baptized against his will. Actually, I met your grandfather twenty five years ago when I was in Denmark. He was a very interesting man."

I stared at Shalev. Was he a mind reader or some kind of memory psycho? Or was I on drugs without knowing it? Anything can happen in New York. Some one could have slipped a pill into my Chardonnay to take advantage of my body - or more likely, to force me from writing more novels.

Meir continued: "I met your grandfather through Herbert Pundik (a famous Danish journalist and editor). Then I took the train and visited your granddad an hour and a half from Copenhagen. He lived in the countryside in a beautiful house by a small lake."

I kept on staring at the Israeli writer. This was too surreal, but at the same time, my granddad's life story was so incredible that most people would remember it if they heard it. Actually, I wrote a novel about his life in 1998 called Drømmeren fra Palæstina (The Dreamer from Palestine). Unfortunately, the novel isn't out in English but it's also been published in French as Le Rêveur de Palestine (Gaia Editions, 2006)


My small Danish bestseller from 1998.


My maternal granddad was named David Huda. He was the son of an Arab father and a Jewish mother, and he was abducted by a Christian missionary when he was six, probably because his Arab Christian father wanted him to have a Christian upbringing. Then he was brought to Denmark and forced to live in a strange land with a pair of cold foster parents who tried to turn him into a "good" Dane. At that time, no one had dark skin in Denmark, so my grandfather was basically considered a freak by the ignorant farmers.

On so many levels, David Huda's life has been important to me. My grandfather was a warm, charismatic man, and the novel I wrote about him was actually my break through in Denmark. For the first time I got a lot of readers, thanks to this wonderful story from my own family.

"I remember that your grandfather escaped to Sweden during the Second World War in the bottom of a fishing boat," Shalev said. "But he was very ill when I visited him."

I nodded. David Huda died in 1982 but had just come alive on Lexington Avenue in New York, resurrected by a wonderful Israeli author I'd never heard of.

PEN is about connecting writers around the world. Well, PEN, you're doing a damn good job!

The French edition of my novel based on the life of David Huda.


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