I speak at colleges as often as I can. It’s great. Invigorating. Challenging. You know how it goes, though. Every single kid in college is smarter than you are. Their favorite line seems to be “You don’t understand.”
Once when I visited a New York City school, a student representing the English department met me in the parking lot. He looked thoroughly puzzled.
Finally, he squeezed out the question that was obviously buzzing around in his brain. “Um, uh, Mr. Patterson, where’s your entourage?”
I shrugged. “Hey, it’s just me. I’m here alone. I even parked my own car. Been doing it for years. Let’s go talk about books.”
The kid just stood there and he kept shaking his head. He couldn’t believe I’d come there by myself. “You are James Patterson, right?” he finally asked.
I borrowed Jess Corman’s funny line from my J. Walter Thompson days. “Why? Does he owe you money?”
The kid didn’t get it.
That reminds me of something. At different speaking events, I’ve heard the same line at least a dozen times: “You look taller on your book-jacket photos.” Huh? I’m around five eleven; at least, I used to be. On the book jackets, I think I’m about, I don’t know, nine inches tall. Seven inches on the paperbacks.
One time at an airport bookstore, I stood in line to buy a couple of books and some bubble gum. I was behind a woman and I noticed she had one of my novels in her basket. I said something like “Oh, you’re going to read one of my books.”
The woman would not believe that I was me. I finally had to pull out my wallet. I showed her my photo ID.
She still didn’t believe me.
She put my book back too.
That hurt.