A once-in-a-lifetime chance to talk with the writer you most admire.
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Kazuo Ishiguro is a British novelist with eight books published since 1982, and he is my favorite author.
The idea of having a "favorite" anything is silently frowned upon the older we get, or, at least, it's less acknowledged. Children have favorites — candy, movies, songs, characters, friends, school subjects — but as adults, we're rewarded for showcasing a fluid set of preferences, for being selective based upon our audience, and for resisting the urge to publicly express intense emotion over things we enjoy. I'm unconvinced that the call of fandom is inherently a childish one, but even if it is — so what? Who am I to deny access to the kind of unfettered joy that only rears its head during childhood? All of this to say, I had the rare opportunity recently to meet Kazuo Ishiguro, and it was fantastic.
The official start of the line, which had already begun to form before 11:30.
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Mr. Ishiguro was signing copies of his latest novel, The Buried Giant (Knopf, 2015), at The Strand Bookstore in New York City on March 19. Since I've lived my whole life in the Northeast, and Ishiguro has resided in England for decades, I never imagined I'd have the chance to meet him, and so promised myself I'd attend the signing event no matter what.
Mr. Ishiguro is best known for his novels The Remains of the Day, which won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989, and Never Let Me Go, which Time magazine deemed the Best Novel of 2005, and though I adore both books, it's Ishiguro's fourth novel, The Unconsoled, which holds a special place in my heart. The Unconsoled is a sprawling, first-person tale of faulty memory, mounting pressure, half-revealed pasts, ulterior motives, and the causes and consequences of familial pride and shame. It is a weird book, written like a tightly plotted dream, with a narrator who doesn't seem to notice the unusual behaviors and high expectations of the citizens of an unnamed European city facing crisis.
Of any of the dozens of things I wished to tell Mr. Ishiguro — that I also wrote fiction, and considered him an inspiration; that I had read everything he'd ever published; that I was so thankful his books explored the topic of memory — it was The Unconsoled that I needed to mention, and my love of it specifically, in the brief moment I had while he signed my books.
