TRUDY and I had always dreamed of settling into some sunny southern European burg and turning our misadventures as hapless outsiders into publishing gold. But now, heading into this fourth sequel, even we wonder if maybe the vein hasn’t been pretty much mined out. (Editor’s Note: A wonderfully felt paragraph, but the consensus here is that it’s not an intro. Some of that old-time insouciance, please!)
Pork and beans and Trudy’s famous Jell-O salad again tonight. Yum! This snobby food-fetish thing—finding some exotic new recipe, hunting down the idiotically obscure ingredients, haggling with avaricious shopkeepers, fussing around in a steamy kitchen—to think how we used to dote on that whole precious foodie thing! Live and learn. That new supermarket, two towns over, is worth the drive for the frozen U.S. Parker House rolls alone. (Editor’s Note: Powerful stuff, but we worry that literal-minded readers just might think that you’ve become jaded, even a mite surly—“ugly American,” so to speak. How about “We never stop marveling at the locals’ passion for fine food” and leave it at that?)
Talk about a backwater! The video store has three Stallones and The Sound of Music, dubbed. We caved last week and got satellite TV, first one in this broken-down community. Of course, the neighbors are all up in arms about the big dish. What a peevish bunch. And two-faced: Any day now they’ll be coming over and begging to watch some Brazilian soccer game, right in the middle of The Sopranos. (Editor’s Note: Brilliantly, brutally honest. HOWEVER: I can understand how hard it must be by now to keep up the chipper, insouciant—that word again, but it fits!—tone of the first four books, yet I can’t stress enough how inseparable that tone and your success have been. And, frankly, when you cashed the advance check we all thought you’d signaled your readiness to wear that lopsided, self-deprecatory grin for one more round. I don’t want your millions of book-buying fans to sense that their American pal abroad isn’t having a ball.)
Trudy pointed out today that we haven’t had a dinner invitation from a local in exactly one year. A-OK with us, if that’s how they want to play it. We ran out of things to talk about with these yokels a lot longer than a year ago. “How soon are you returning to America?” That’s the only damn question they could ever think of. (Editor’s Note: This is more of exactly what I mean. I have to delete the whole paragraph to save you from yourself. Where’s the ingenuous guy with a dual-language dictionary who used to laugh off his gaffes and get all dewy-eyed just sitting in the town café?)
The old bastard local winegrower had put a curse on our scraggly little vineyard, but until he tried running me down in the village today I hadn’t quite realized the depth of his animosity. (Editor’s Note: Much better! I think if you make this funnier it can be a terrific little anecdote about your eccentric fellow-villagers. It was the way you came up smiling every time you were dumped on—the humility and the humanity—that made those first four books so great.)
The phony little mayor and his delegation completely surrounded the house, their pitch torches blazing in the night. How ancient, Trudy and I wondered, was this local ceremony or vigil or whatever? Did they have a special name for it? Would they keep coming back, night after night? (Editor’s Note: Local color, outsider’s awed perspective, Old World–New World interaction—splendid!)
It was, the policeman assured me, just a few young bucks letting off steam. Tipping our car over the embankment—a prank, a “macho” thing, and absolutely nothing personal. He had a cousin who could come, perhaps tomorrow or the next day, and roll it back up the hill; please, some money for the long-distance call? I couldn’t help thinking of the same situation back home: the endless waiting for the cops, the forms to fill out, lawyers and insurance agents and tow trucks, and certainly no mob of bystanders joking, calling out suggestions, making of it an occasion for fun. The gift for having fun—it was perhaps the best trait of this singular people, Trudy and I agreed on the long, long, long walk home. (Editor’s Note: You’ve regained the old stride—masterfully sketched!)
I had finally broken the peasant’s viselike grip on my wrist and handed over my gold Rolex; Trudy, meanwhile, was marveling at the sauce his wife labored over at her ancient stove, stirring with a crooked forefinger and spitting what appeared to be tobacco juice into the pan. “Could I have the recipe?” Trudy inquired. “No! Get out, American bitch!” It would clearly take time, and patience, to glean the secrets of this kitchen. “Out! Out! Out!” The salty spirit, the utter lack of ambiguity—by now we knew it was no mere empty social ritual but pure, personal hostility. We had connected, outsiders no more. (Editor’s Note: What an ending! They’re gonna love this! Not to jump too far ahead, but have you given any thought to a sixth book?)
2001