STEVE EFFING KLUGER IS THE EFFING MAN!!

Three posts in one day. I know, I know. I’m sorry. But holy crap. HOLY CRAP. So remember Steve Kluger, the author of my absolute favorite book in the world, The Last Days of Summer? I write about him so much he has his own “tag” (check the tag cloud to the right of this blog and a bit further down, and you’ll see what I mean). I love his books and I love his writing and… yeah. I’m probably one of his biggest fangirls ever. Anyways.

Today I was cyber stalking him because I’ve read all his books and I’ve been having withdrawals and I realized that he has a contact email for fans. This was incredibly exciting, so I decided to shoot him a quick note.

“Dear Mr. Kluger,

I’m writing this because, after writing raving reviews for you on my website ever since I read My Most Excellent Year, it seemed silly to never let you know how much your books have meant to me. I’m a freshman in college, and a declared creative writing major, so someday I hope to publish fiction novels as well. And even though I can never hope to twist and tangle heartstrings the way you do, I can always hope, right?

Just to give you more of an idea of how crazy I am about you and your books, I thought I’d share two of my favorite blogs I’ve written about your books. The first was written as a part of a theme week (Book Characters I Love And Am Meant To Be With Week) about Charlie Banks of The Last Days of Summer, my absolute favorite book in the world. http://brisownworld.com/?p=3422

The second is a review I did for my school paper on Almost Like Being in Love that I enjoyed so much I published on my website as well. http://brisownworld.com/?p=2888

I hope you’ll read them, if only to better understand what your writing has done for one young girl from small town Colorado.

Thank you, and I hope you have another book in the works, because the world needs more Steve Kluger novels.”

And then, not ten minutes later, I get this:

“Bri, thanks SO much for the note. All of the novels have been significantly autobiographical–you already know from the Author’s Note in Last Days of Summer that it was a projection of what my father’s life could have turned out to be like if he’d had a hero to champion him when he was a kid, and how Joey was an amalgam of me and my Dad. Almost Like Being in Love sprang out of falling in love with my (straight) best friend during a senior class production of Brigadoon in high school and included other wince-inducing real-life events like the time I faked a pain in an upper left molar so I could go in for a root canal I didn’t need just because my new Japanese American dentist was too damned cute to have to wait six months to see him again. But My Most Excellent Year was the real labor of love: Hucky Harper is a deaf version of my ten-year-old nephew Noah, right down to the hangaburs, his mad face, and his stuffed dog named Shut-the-Door (the purple balloon story happened to us when he was 3-1/2); my sister-in-law Lori (Noah’s mother) is Lori Mahoney, particularly her pathological refusal to sneak down to the empty expensive seats during a ball game; my sister-in-law Alejandra (who goes by “Alé”) always said that the one role she always wished she could have played was Lilli in Kiss Me, Kate (her audition song when she first moved to New York was “The Music and the Mirror”), Phyllis Bryant is one of my dearest friends; Lee Meyerhoff and I have known each other since we were in third grade; Augie is me when I was that age; T.C. is me when I became a Big Brother to an 11-year-old without a father; Ted is mostly my brother Garry (with a touch of my father, who built the planetarium and the state map for two of my school projects); and when I was 15 years old and wanted desperately to see the Tony Awards (which were sold out), I snuck out of boarding school in my school blazer and slacks, took the train into New York, tried without success to find a standing room ticket, and wound up pulling open the gold-painted stage door at the Shubert and telling the stage doorman that my mother–Carol Channing–had forgotten to leave my ticket at the box office. Two things worked in my favor: (1) I may have been 15, but I looked 12, which made it appear extremely unlikely that I was pulling a fast one; and (2) I was obviously telling the truth since it would have been so easy to prove that I was lying. “Miss Channing, is this your son?” “Why, no, dear. I’ve never seen this boy before in my life.” So he waved me in and told me where to find Mom’s dressing room. When he wasn’t looking, I took a detour up the stairs leading to the stage and watched the entire thing from the downstage left wing with the celebrities waiting to go on. That’s why I always felt that this particular novel was more a matter of creative reporting than creative writing–though I get a big kick out of sharing the emotional by-line with the people I love.”

AAAAAAAAHHHHHH. THE AUTHOR OF MY FAVORITE BOOK WROTE ME BACK.

Of course, this meant I just had to send him another email, but I’ll keep those to myself. I just really wanted everyone to know how incredible this was. It’s a good day. A most excellent day, if you will.