Gianna's Thoughts on the Passing of a Bookselling Legend

Two weeks ago longtime bookseller David Thompson of Murder By the Book passed away unexpectedly. Yesterday a celebration of his life was held at the Briar Club in Houston and hundreds of people--including authors such as Lee Child and Robert Crais--gathered to pay respects, drink margaritas, and swap David stories. Gianna was unable to attend, so she composed this piece to be read at the gathering if there was the opportunity. Because the...party? wake? shindig?...was pretty informal and no one spoke, such an opportunity did not arise. Therefore, we are sharing her tribute to our friend David in this space. Here is what she wrote:

It’s been an incredibly difficult couple of weeks; just when I think the shock will wear off it just doesn’t. In the first few days after David’s death I found myself continually looking at his and the Murder by the Book Facebook pages – you’ve all seen the dozens and dozens of posts – everyone from famous bestselling authors to book lovers who never met David in person, it is truly remarkable. There was another post on Sept. 15th that I have thought about every single day – often more than once a day – it is a post that took strength, grace, kindness and enormous generosity. It simply read, “Thank you all,” and it was posted by McKenna. Just to know she felt us with her helped a little bit.

I am proud to work in books – proud of the way the staff at Blue Willow, Book People, and Sally at Brazos across the street (who knew David so long), and even stores across the country reached out. The staff at Murder by the Book has been, I have no words, very strong I guess, a real tribute to David. Anne, we depended on you for news, and everything else. I don’t know how you did it. This news truly rocked Random House, I got calls from editors and publicists – some crying on the phone. Ours is a business, and often the participants in the business of publishing books are required to be tough, consummate professionals, but my god they loved David. We really are a family – the kind of family that can’t borrow cash from each other because you know – we all work and books and make crappy money!

Now I want to talk about David possibly being a cross dresser. When someone dies, events, conversations, break down into such small moments for me – and I have been really focused on one in particular. One day, not too terribly long ago, David said, pretty casually, more casually than one would expect from anyone else but he said, “I sometimes accidently wear McKenna’s clothes to work.” I should point out that we weren’t in a confessional or even alone. McKenna, Brenda (David’s mother in law) and I were all in the back talking about I don’t know what but I am sure the topic wasn’t wearing each others clothes. Anyway, I said “What do you mean?” and David went on to say that McKenna buys these oversized Oxford shirts she likes to lounge around in and sometimes when he is in a hurry he just grabs one and goes to work, and later at some point McKenna will see him and say in a sort of sad but not totally surprised voice, “Oh David… that’s my shirt.” So I asked David if he has done it more than once and he was pretty proud to say yes, definitely more than once he “accidently” wore his wife’s clothes. I pointed out that once was an accident, twice was unfortunate and you know more than that is just cross dressing. Brenda had her back to David and I remember so so clearly looking at her and she was organizing books sort of shaking her head and had the sweetest smile on her face, and just by looking at her you knew she adored this guy. That’s one of my favorite moments, McKenna and I laughing – tears in my eyes, Brenda with that sweet smile and David trying to convince us it wasn’t weird.

One last thing. I last saw David on Sept 9th at the store, I just stopped in to chat and joke around for a bit and David talked about how excited he was to meet Dean Koontz in October. I was about to leave and then in the frantic passionate voice we all know from David he said, “wait wait come here!” We went to a shelf he picked up a book handed it to me and insisted I would love it. And that was that. . The last time I saw David he put a book in my hand – pretty perfect.

Reach Out and Touch (the Essence of) Someone

This Tuesday David Grossman's new novel, TO THE END OF THE LAND, goes on sale in the United States, published by Knopf. Grossman is a writer of worldwide critical acclaim and deserves a wider readership in this country (he's a bestseller in Israel, where he lives).

I sold this book to my bookstores months ago, and even though Knopf offered a special promotional allowance to encourage booksellers to take a chance on a long novel from a writer with slow sales in this country (his books were previously published by Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux), it was a struggle to convince stores that this book was something special, a book among books during the busy fall publishing season. And then Nicole Krauss, author of THE HISTORY OF LOVE and the upcoming GREAT HOUSE, supplied a blurb for Grossman's novel.

I myself am not much of a blurb reader. Publishers go to great lengths to secure praise-filled quotes from other established authors and supposedly these endorsements sway booksellers and the public to read a book they might otherwise have overlooked. I almost never read the blurbs myself and barely pay them any attention at all, except that they have become so ubiquitous that I do notice the emptiness of book jackets lacking quotes; they seem naked without the blurb. So for several weeks during the late spring/early summer, a stack of advance reading copies (ARCs) of TO THE END OF THE LAND sat in a stack in my office and I never even noticed the author blurb on the front cover. Then the book media did take note of the blurb.

“Very rarely, a few times in a lifetime, you open a book and when you close it again nothing can ever be the same. Walls have been pulled down, barriers broken, a dimension of feeling, of existence itself, has opened in you that was not there before. To the End of the Land is a book of this magnitude. David Grossman may be the most gifted writer I've ever read; gifted not just because of his imagination, his energy, his originality, but because he has access to the unutterable, because he can look inside a person and discover the unique essence of her humanity. For twenty-six years he has been writing novels about what it means to defend this essence, this unique light, against a world designed to extinguish it. To the End of the Land is his most powerful, shattering, and unflinching story of this defense. To read it is to have yourself taken apart, undone, touched at the place of your own essence; it is to be turned back, as if after a long absence, into a human being.”

Krauss was mocked for her ridiculous rave, with some book industry folks even questioning whether such an over-the-top endorsement would ultimately hurt review and media attention--not to mention readers'--for an otherwise worthy novel. I don't know about the rest of the country, but I can say that in poking fun at the Krauss quote, suddenly my booksellers paid attention to what is a long, literary work dealing with tough subjects in a country Americans seem to typically avoid (at least in literature). So thank you, Nicole Krauss, for letting a book touch at the place of your own essence; while I've never allowed a book to take such liberties with my essence, I admire your courage in admitting how TO THE END OF THE LAND changed your life.

Is this book as good as Krauss suggests? YES. It is a powerful odyssey of family, loss, sacrifice, and war, set in a country that has seen nothing but conflict since its founding. TO THE END OF THE LAND is the story of Ora, a woman estranged from her husband Ilan and the mother of Ofer, a son who unexpectedly re-enlists in the Israeli army when violence erupts between Israel and Palestine. Convinced that she will lose Ofer too, she flees her home, the constant media updates about the violence, and her chatty neighbors, and decides to take a pilgrimage through Galilee. She is not entirely alone on her journey, though; she convinces an old friend, Avram, to join her. Avram, a former POW of the Yom Kippur War who struggles with post-traumatic stress after he was tortured, is not the most obvious--or stable--walking companion, but as they walk across the countryside, Ora tells Avram the story of her family and her son Ofer. She is convinced that Ofer will die while standing guard at his checkpoint, but in telling his story to Avram, she is able to keep her imagined terror in check.

TO THE END OF THE LAND is indeed an incredibly moving book, one that has stuck in my head for months after reading it. Like all Israelis of a certain age, too, Grossman's own children served their stint in the military, and this real-life parallel will increase the media attention for this worthy novel. Indeed, the New York Times Book Review will give TO THE END OF THE LAND its coveted cover review slot next week. I can only hope that readers discover this wonderful novel themselves and possibly even allow it to change their lives...or even write semi-vulgar blurbs praising its essence.

A Loss in Book Land

Earlier this week the book world suffered a major blow when longtime bookseller David Thompson passed away unexpectedly. David worked at Murder By the Book in Houston, one of the country's preeminent mystery bookstores, for 21 years--his entire adult life--and to call him a legend in the industry is not an exaggeration.

I don't know how to comprehend this tragedy. Others knew him better, longer, shared more in common. Still, I miss him. His death seems so terribly unfair. I grieve for him and for the pain felt by his family, friends, and everyone who ever came into contact with him. To know David was to love him.

I knew of "David at Murder By the Book," as my sales reps referred to him in telling me stories, back when I was a buyer at BookPeople and long before I ever met him. Someone so respected and with so much experience--I was shocked when I finally did meet him (in my capacity as a rep for Random House) years later, shocked that David was my age, in his 30's. The book industry by-and-large is a world populated primarily by an old guard of the stalwarts who've run the best stores and the best presses for decades, and then another group of the young booksellers making less than $10 an hour hocking their favorites while figuring out what to do with their lives. David was that rare individual who was experienced but not embittered, young but not looking for "a real job," a man who'd found his love as a 17 year old stocking shelves at a mystery bookstore and made it his life.

Another first impression of David: Gianna and I were escorting one of our New York bosses to stores around Texas, and because we were in Houston we took her to Murder By the Book. At the time, MBTB was a telephone sales account, so I wasn't actually selling to the store and felt a little awkward walking through the door as a stranger...who only lived three blocks away. I needn't have worried. David was in his element and swept all of us into a tour of the store and a discussion of his favorite books, and ours. I wasn't a mystery reader and worried that I would be lost in his world, but the opposite was the case. He accepted everyone, drew out others' passions, and found commonalities to bond people together. In his delightful dorkiness and infectious enthusiasm, it was impossible to feel out of place in his company and in the store. That visit was also special because David and MBTB's new owner McKenna Jordan were about to fly to Scotland to get married, and both of them were giddy about the trip and their obvious love for each other.

When I moved to Houston a year earlier after I accepted the Random House job, I despaired at my disconnection to people in the city; I worked from home but travelled frequently, I don't like organized social gatherings, I didn't have a preexisting group of friends. I had met a few booksellers and eased into a new life straddling my new, isolated life in Houston and my old life in Austin with my friends. David and McKenna unknowingly acted as a bridge between these worlds. They made me feel welcome, they laughed at the same things, they worried about the same issues (to be in your 30's and looking at the rapid changes in the industry and ponder your chances for a career in this business--it's a daunting vision of the future). I counted them as friends. I loved giving David a hard time--he and McKenna joined Gianna and me for an Astros game earlier this year and David insisted that McKenna bring a glove to protect him from foul balls--and he loved the exchanges.

I have never met a more passionate bookseller than David Thompson. He possessed an innocence in his boyish enthusiasm for what he loved--books, authors, and sharing the joy of reading--that was entirely unique and beautiful. David was supposed to attend a dinner the night of his death, a dinner I was hosting along with a group of people representing Other Press, and I'd specifically wanted him there because everyone in the industry needed to know him and know that the written word had such passionate advocates. He was loved by his customers, he was loved by his sales reps, he was loved by the publicists with whom he booked signings, he was loved by the authors, he was loved by his fellow booksellers, and he was loved by family and friends. I am a better person, a better book rep, and a better reader because I knew David Thompson, even if only for a couple of years. I've missed him every day this week, and I don't anticipate the longing to see an email pop up in my inbox or hear his voice on my phone to ease any time soon.

Read a mystery in David's memory this weekend and drink a margarita. He would have liked that.

The End of the World As I Know It

I confess that I have a fondness for apocalyptic and dystopian fiction. The creepier the end-world scenario, the better--and what makes them creepy? The creepiest novels are the ones that seem eerily possible. Twenty years ago, Margaret Atwood predicted that a hyper-fundamentalist theocracy would begin to brainwash the country, subjugating women. And today, driving to Mississippi, I eavesdropped on a conversation at a convenience store that involved a woman telling a man that the reason a mutual acquaintance was still single was "'Cause she's lazy and she won't cook. How's she ever going to get a man if she can't cook?" I am pretty sure that religious cults insist that women know how to cook...writes the single woman who absolutely refuses to spend her free time in the kitchen. Pot? Kettle.

Anyway, there's a lot to fear in the near future, and here are a few of my favorite alternative, probably bleak, novels.

NEVER LET ME GO--Kazuo Ishiguro's terrific novel about exceptional teens raised in a "special" school will soon debut nationwide as the new film starrng Kiera Knightley. Ishiguro is a Booker Prize-winning writer, the story rivals all the great love sagas of literature, and then there's the creepy truth about these kids' lives and their special value to society. I can't wait for the movie.


CLOUD ATLAS--If you asked me what my favorite book of the decade was, it would be this experimental novel by the brilliant David Mitchell. CLOUD ATLAS ingeniously blends together six separate stories, from a Patrick O'Brien-esque naval tale to a "China Symdrome" nuclear threat to a dystopian future akin to Kevin Costner's "Waterworld," all centering on the theme of free will and independence. This book reaffirmed my desire to stay in the book business when I was considering graduate school. Books are just more fun.

THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD--No one manages to blend literary prestige with speculative fiction like Margaret Atwood, and THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD is her most recent stroll into the near future. The events of YEAR OF THE FLOOD are the same as those in ORYX & CRAKE, both book looking at what will happen if we continue to destroy the environment and tamper with potentially dangerous genetic engineering of the food supply. Killer viruses, a hippie gardening cult, and strippers make THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD highly entertaining as well as scary.

THE UNIT--Swedish authors are hot right now, with the Stieg Larsson trilogy dominating all of the top spots on the NYT Bestseller List, but don't think that Stieg is the only Swedish author out there. THE UNIT, by Ninni Holmqvist, is set in the near future and centers around Dorrit, a woman-of-a-certain-age who, upon turning 50, moves into a retirement community of sorts with other aging, childless singles. It's like a seniors mixer/party in a dorm facility, with classes and dances...and organ harvesting. THE UNIT questions a person's worth beyond one's ability to reproduce. Maybe if Dorrit had learned to cook and moved to Mississippi she'd have found a man....

THE ROAD--Cormac McCarthy's novel of a father and son trying to survive after global catastrophe, with cannibals roaming around and horrors around every corner, received a big push when Oprah picked it for her book group a few years ago. It's a bleak book to be sure, but also a moving portrait of love in the face of adversity.

THINGS WE DIDN'T SEE COMING--How could you not be curious about a book written by a guy who used to be a psychiatric nurse and then moved to Australia? These linked stories assume that the global shutdown foretold with Y2K does transpire and the world is thrown into chaos and famine. It could have happened.

THE RAPTURE--This creepy thriller centers around the daughter of religious fundamentalists who predicts the future...a future that involves 1,000 foot tidal waves destroying the earth. The cause of the waves? An offshore oil rig disturbs the dangerously volatile frozen methane at the bottom of the ocean, creating a massive explosion. You know, sort of like the recent gulf oil spill.

All of these books open lots of room for discussion, making them ideal for book groups.

Happy St. Swithin's Day!

So in spite of the fact that little of merit and much that could corrupt have appeared on this little blog, my boss actually likes it and misses it. And I live to please. After a 6 month hiatus, therefore, here you go, the return of Liz and Gianna. I, Liz, will still probably be the main source of insanity to appear here, but Gianna promises that occasionally she'll chip in and reveal which hotels have found her lost undergarments most recently.

What has happened in the last half-year, you wonder? For starters, Gianna and I won an award for sale repping which is proof that (almost) no one read this blog. Oh, and I added two states to my sales territory and am now exploring the wonders of Alabama and Louisiana. An aside, this morning I was perusing the various news websites and stumbled on an article ranking the states in order of most to least obese. Four of the five states I represent are in the Top 10, including Mississippi at #1! Woot!! I'm so proud. And don't worry, all those po-boys I've eaten in the 3 1/2 years I've had this job, I'm single-handedly, double-chin-edly, dragging Texas up to the Top 10 as well. So, some new states and roads to travel, with lots of driving and freaky roadside weirdness, such as this guy's interesting bumper decor:



I've perfected the drive-by photo snap:



and I've made snide jokes about this sign, because I really have the sense of humor of a 12 year old:



I've been busy. Heh. Grosse Tete....

Moving on. So, what is St. Swithin's Day and why should you care and what does it have to do with the book industry? Frankly, I don't think St. Swithin's Day has anything at all to do with the book business directly. From what I can tell, St. Swithin was a bishop in England(e) once upon a time who seemed to like the rain and his saintly "miracle" involved cursing the country with potentially nasty weather for 40 consecutive days each year because somebody decided to move his grave.


St. Swithin's Day, though, which happens to be July 15th, is the one day featured in David Nicholls's novel called--what else?--ONE DAY. I love this book. There's so much that could have misfired with it, from its clever conceit to the love plot, and I am a sceptical reader when it comes to clever things...and emotions. But when "clever" meets "engaging, flawed-but-likeable characters" and "cinematic storytelling," that book just might work. Since ONE DAY has burst onto the US bestseller lists as a Vintage Contemporaries paperback original, I guess I'm not the only one who found the magic in this book. So ONE DAY is the story of Dex and Emma, two British types who go on their first date on the night of their college graduation, July 15th, 1988. They don't become a couple that night--they are, after all, leaving school and heading their separate ways--but they do become friends. The novel then goes on to tell the story of their relationship, from friendship to falling out to reconnecting to love, over the course of 20 years. We only glimpse their lives, though, on July 15th of each year. It sounds like it could be super-cheesy, but David Nicholls has a knack for keeping the plot, characters, and one day concept from becoming trite. Dex and Emma are characters you want to know, for whom you root, and while reading ONE DAY I kept thinking, "This book would make a terrific movie." I typically hate romantic comedy-type things, but occasionally the right story produces an exceptional work. Think "When Harry Met Sally," or Nick Hornby's books, but with more soul and fewer hipster references. These characters seem like the people I knew in college, their struggles seem real, and the one day concept keeps the story fresh. And the movie of ONE DAY? It was destined for cinema. Anne Hathaway is set to star. READ THIS BOOK. TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO READ THIS BOOK. I promise it's really, really good.

Can You Sign It As "Liz, Will You Marry Me?"

Texas Book Festival 2009! A couple of weeks ago I rose at an unholy hour to drive the three hours to Austin in order to attend the annual Texas Book Festival, held every year on the Capitol grounds. I have a love/hate relationship with the Book Fest, going back to its creator (Laura Bush; sorry, not a fan) and the days when I worked it with a bookstore in the tents and it was invariably rainy, freezing, alternately stifling hot, and my favorite, tornadic. I also would prefer that the Texas organization chose to support Texas businesses in their book sales. Nonetheless, Texas Book Fest hosted over 200 authors this year, including some of my all time favorites. I've skipped the event in years past, but this year two of the four "If I Lived Near You, You'd Issue a Restraining Your On Me" authors were in attendance. I would have hit the road any hour hour to bask in their awesomeness.

I arrived at the Capitol at 9:50 am, just in time to hear Richard Russo kick off the festival by reading from his terrific novel THAT OLD CAPE MAGIC. Russo's event was large enough that the organizers had placed him in the sanctuary of the Methodist church that's next to the Capitol. The place was packed. I was supposed to meet my boss Valerie there, but there was no way I would find her in the crowd, so I took a seat in the back (close to the door in case my presence in a holy place peeved a heavenly entity into some divine retribution lightning strikes). Russo took the pulpit after a brief introduction and kicked off his reading with an apology; his selected reading contained choice words normally not uttered in a House of the Lord. Words that I would use...and one of the reasons I'm not a minister. Or nun. Anyway, he was great--hilarious, charming, a strong reader, and he held the crowd for a full hour as he read of the travails of a son negotiating his divorced college professor parents' strained relationships. If you haven't read this book, find it and buy it and read it. It's classic Russo--humane, funny, poignant--but at a third the page count of some of his tomes. This book is my rare exception to my "I hate beach chairs on book jackets" tenet.

After the Russo event, still unavailable to locate Valerie, I instead found Gianna in the bowels of the Capitol building, where she was waiting to hear Dan Chaon, author of the amazing AWAIT YOUR REPLY (previously mentioned on this half-assed blog). Gianna and I had eaten dinner with Dan a couple of nights before, the day his book was named one of the 10 Best of the Year by Publishers Weekly (well-deserved). Dan is the antithesis of the jerkwad author; he's a delightful dinner companion and reader, and the kind of guy with whom you just want to sit around and talk books. He was part of a panel at the Book Fest, and as the room filled to capacity I relinquished my seat and set off to find my lost boss instead, leaving Gianna after a brief hello. I did find Valerie, though, and we walked through the tents of exhibitors. Unlike just about every other year, the weather was perfect and the Festival was actually festive. I ran into more friends that Saturday than I've seen since, say, the days when I was in college and saw all of my friends (and enemies) every single day. We strolled, gossiped, and then ate lunch with one of Valerie's old friends. Then Valerie said good-bye and I went off to stalk authors.

Specifically, I drove to Austin to see two people: Colson Whitehead and Margaret Atwood. Recently Gianna sent me an email asking me what my five favorite books of the 2000's were. I sent her a list and she sent me hers in return. The common thread? JOHN HENRY DAYS by Colson Whitehead. Everyone should read this book. I love it. Anyway, because lunch took awhile, I missed his reading, but like any good stalker I knew where to catch him in the signing tent and I was fourth in line, camera ready. The line attendant asked me if I'd like for the author to personalize my book. I answered, half-jokingly, "Will he write, 'Will you marry me?'" The woman laughed nervously and walked on. On the one hand, I like making people uncomfortable. On the other, I do work for his publisher and should mind my manners. When I introduced myself as his sales rep, though, he was generous and thanked me for my work on his books. He didn't propose...perhaps because I think he's already married and because he probably didn't know he was supposed to...but I still love him.

And from the wondrous Mr. Whitehead's presence, I walked down to the Paramount Theater, a few blocks from the Capitol, because if I had to maim children, I would in order to see Margaret Atwood speak. I can't think of an author I more revere. She's a tremendous writer, she's crusty and funny, and she's from Canada. I love Canada. I collect her books as a chronicle of my life--where I was and what I was doing at the times I first read them. I sometimes pretend that she's my grandma. We get along swimmingly in my imagination. And I love Canada. Anyway, I was thirty minutes early for the event and here's what I saw when I arrived: (left)
I, apparently, am not the only Atwood fan out there. The theater, once we were allowed to enter, quickly filled to capacity, and in the dark the place bubbled with anticipation. Finally, there she was. My granny, my elder Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every literary way. The format of the program was a Q & A with a moderator, Ben Moser, who happens to be the son of the manager of Brazos Bookstore in Houston. Ben, who is the books editor for Harper's, held his own versus the feisty Atwood, and both had the crowd laughing and engaged in the perils of global destruction (the cautionary tale of Atwood's latest novel, the dystopian THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD). I was enthralled. People aren't supposed to take pictures inside the Paramount, so I only took seven. Having already read and sold the book, and already a follower of Atwood's blogging and Twittering (she's a big fan of organic coffee), there wasn't a whole lot that was said that I didn't already know, except for the people who were there. I found their reactions to this author's work surprising. For example, it never even occurred to me that their aren't happy endings in Atwood's novels. She made a point of saying that none of her books is Hamlet, in which only one person is alive at the end. I guess I never read books expecting a happy ending. I consider that desire for cheery resolution a bit immature and simplistic. The real world isn't like that (or at least, my version of the world). I'm regularly surprised by readers who want happy endings. I tend to dislike books that end this way. Anyway, after the stage portion of the event, Atwood moved to the balcony area of the theater and began to sign books. I somehow managed to end up four people from the end of the line, and therefore had a ton of time to kill by talking to the other people waiting...and waiting...and waiting. We waited for almost two hours. The staff members working the event after a long day of big authors (Buzz Aldrin was at that venue before Atwood), looked like they would tackle people for a cocktail. Finally, though, I was standing next to her, talking to her, bumbling before her. And she was taking down my name for the restraining order. I'm quite convinced that Canada will confiscate my passport the next time I attempt to cross that border. I'm willing to risk Canadian jail though. Mounties are cute in those uniforms, ay?

The Finest Eating Joint in Texas, Part 3

Oh god, that meal.

Let's start with something I forgot to mention during the appetizer course. Valerie, my boss, tried to order onion rings as one of our appetizers, but Trevor the waiter returned to tell us that The Big Texan was out of onion rings. I worked for a summer as a Sonic carhop--the third worst job I've ever had--and one of my responsibilities in the morning before the Sonic opened was to assist in the making of onion rings. As mentioned earlier, I still eat at Sonic, even after working in one for three months. I don't think I'll be returning to The Big Texan without coercive methods. Anyway, it's not hard to make an onion ring, and since the whole menu was swimming in batter, the issue must have been that either A) they were out of onions, or B) they were too lazy to hack up some onions and dip them in the vats of batter. The onion rings weren't the only missing items from the menu that night.

We ordered. Chris the Bottomless Stomach, who had already ordered the 32 oz beer, ordered the second largest steak on the menu, a 36 oz slab of cow, the "Houston Cut" ribeye, that made me feel nauseated at mere contemplation. Most of the others ordered cow products, though Gianna ordered a baked potato with everything but the bacon bits, her best option as the table's vegetarian. Not a cow eater, I narrowed my choices down to either the fried chicken strips for $15.25 or the fried shrimp with "Buck-a-Roo Cocktail Sauce" for $16.95. I thought that it was outrageous to charge over $15 for chicken strips, and I (wrongly) guessed that if they were willing to cute-ify the name of the dipping sauce that the shrimp were the better choice. On the other hand, Amarillo rests about 800 miles from an ocean. I asked Trevor if the shrimp were frozen, which I didn't really care about, but sometimes I watch Gordon Ramsey's "Kitchen Nightmares" show and he's always going on about fresh ingredients. Trevor basically guaranteed that the shrimp were from the deep freeze, but I humored the "how bad can they be?" thought and ordered them anyway, along with a salad and mashed potatoes. Valerie ordered a steak, mashed potatoes, and another side, and Alan, who had talked about ribs for ten minutes, ordered a rack.

Then we sat back and waited. We waited for the two people from our account to join us, as they had been delayed by an event. We waited for the food. Everyone continued to drink, except for Brenda who never received her margarita, and we heard detailed descriptions of the flights from Maryland (our logistics people) and Minnesota (Alan). Trevor somewhat regularly found his way to the table to bring more beer, but not the food. After about 45 minutes of waiting, the appetizer trays scraped clean, we heard a commotion downstairs. A waitress announced that someone was attempting the 72 oz steak challenge. A large man sat at a table in the middle of the first floor with a slab of cow smothering a plate. The waitress explained the rules; eat the whole steak, the baked potato, the salad, the rolls, and three shrimp in an hour and they are free. She didn't point out that if he failed he would pay almost $100 for the meal, or that a vomit bucket sat on the floor beside his table. People gathered around to wish him luck, and lots of people snapped pictures, and the freak show nature of the joint intensified. And back at our table, Valerie and Alan began to grow impatient for our food. The logistics team was still on East Coast time and we were all hungry. Plus, Chris the Stomach was already on his second 32 oz beer. We needed our food.

As Chris the Wannabe Kobayashi criticized steak guy's strategy for downing the massive cow hunk ("You have to eat 75% of it in the first 20 minutes, before your stomach realizes what's happening"), Valerie got up to track down Trevor and our dinners. As soon as she stood, naturally, he appeared with our entrees. He served most of the main courses. I can't speak about the quality of the food down on Gianna's side of the table, though I do know that Gianna's baked potato "with everything but the bacon bits" arrived as only a potato, nothing else, and she knew that it wasn't hot because Trevor picked up the foil-wrapped potato and set it down in front of her without the assistance of a hot mat. Or a plate. I repeat, she didn't receive a plate.

As for my end of the table, well, we weren't impressed by the quality. Valerie's steak was very cold, and Alan's ribs looked awful, with the sauce congealed across a grayish matter that was allegedly meat. Across from me, Kathy cut into her "medium well" steak, which was described on the menu as "no pink, cooked throughout," and blood pooled in her plate. She looked stricken and sent the plate back with Trevor to experience the phenomenon of fire. And then there were my shrimp. I could tell right away that something was off about my shrimp. It was that the top three were fried together as they obviously had been removed from the freezer, stuck together. The cook hadn't bothered to separate them before dropping them in the fryer, and then he hadn't bothered to hide the horror underneath the other shrimp. They were on top, like a prized nugget. Also, I've had good-though-frozen shrimp that were good quality. These little shrimp were obviously not high quality. They were pulverized flat to make them seem larger than the medium-to-small size they actually were. No shrimp exist like that in nature. The tasted pretty nasty, too.

About the time that people began sending their food back to the kitchen for heating/cooking, the two people joining us from our account arrived. They greeted everyone, sat down, and ordered drinks. Meanwhile, Chris the Cow Compactor had torn into the huge steak on his plate. I am very glad that I wasn't sitting next to him, because he's a nice and highly entertaining guy, but watching that cow consumption would have required a bucket for me too. As Chris ate, though, it quickly was obvious to all of us that he was putting the 72 oz challenger downstairs to shame. As Beefy T downstairs was giving up, Chris was mopping up his plate. And because I found my shrimp disgusting and my sides had yet to arrive, I was taking pictures. As the big guy packed up about 2/3 of his steak, Chris all but licked his plate. The waitress presented the challenger with an "I Surrender!" t-shirt, and people cheered the attempt, and I'm guessing that the guy was thinking that the shirt probably tasted better than his steak. If you look closely at the picture, he managed to eat ALL of his salad. Gianna screamed down to my end of the table, "Liz! Look! NO WEDDING RING!" She's constantly on the look out for a future Mr. Liz, and I probably don't show my gratitude properly. Anyway, if you look at the plate behind Chris's juicy remains, you'll notice huge cuts of onion. Guess that answers the onion ring question.

While we were making fun of the guy who failed to eat the 72 oz steak, Trevor stopped by and we quizzed him on the challenge. He told us that about 15 people attempted it each day, and that often it ends with the challenger using the puke bucket. Worse, they don't tell the regular diners that the contestant next to them might ruin the whole dining room's meal by retching four and a half pounds of cow into a metal bucket. I'm glad that we were sitting in the balcony.

In the meantime, we were still waiting on our sides, and after Valerie asked for the third time--I think she wanted SOMETHING to eat and was hoping that the mashed potatoes would compensate for the cold and congealed cow on her plate--the potatoes arrived. They were vile, and possibly the worst "food" on the table. The consistency of glue and adhering to the dishes (I flipped mine upside-down and tried to jar them loose, with no success), they were flavorless, luke-warm, and very, very bad. If you saw the movie The Matrix, and you remember the gross protein substance that Keanu and his pals ate for breakfast, imagine that glop after it has solidified. Those were our potatoes. And after still more pleading, we finally received our second sides, in my case a salad. Now, I normally treat salad as a necessary evil before the good parts of a meal, and I regularly state that I don't eat twigs and shrubs, but that salad was the best thing I ate that night. If only I hadn't waited almost three hours for it to arrive, I might have enjoyed the food portion of my Big Texan experience more. I should make clear that I had a blast taking in the absurdity of the entire scene, but the food was terrible and the service appalling. I don't blame Trevor--he seemed flustered and overwhelmed the whole time, and we found out that he'd only been working there for about two weeks. And it wasn't his fault that starving refugees would have hesitated to eat that food. On the whole, though, I couldn't believe that the restaurant was featured on the Food Network. Valerie, feeling obstinate, demanded that they serve us the dinner rolls we should have received about two hours earlier, and though I didn't eat one, the consensus at the table was that the rolls were good.

And then we ordered dessert. Chris-Who-Ate-Amarillo ordered a slice of cheesecake, and in an attempt to find some food over going back to the hotel hungry, Valerie, Alan, and I shared a piece of chocolate cake. A couple of other desserts were ordered for the other end of the table. Alan ordered black coffee, and Annette ordered decaf. A minute later, Trevor came back and announced that they were out of regular coffee. I lost it. I was laughing hysterically and Valerie questioned my mental state as I openly guffawed at the whole evening. Then she joined me laughing. What kind of a restaurant doesn't have coffee? And wouldn't you send someone to go buy some coffee before admitting that you're out to a table of 11 whose orders have been mangled from the time they sat down? How is this place still open?? When the desserts arrived, Alan immediately sent back our chocolate cake so that they could add the ice cream, whipped cream, nuts, and cherry that were shown in the picture on the dessert menu. They had sent out a slab of cake on a plate with no garnish, and for that matter, no clean utensils. As Trevor tried to hand us forks, he himself, pulled back his hand because he didn't think that the handful of utensils had been washed. And then we heard the laughter from the other end of the table. After a meal of oversized excess, Chris's slice of cheesecake was shockingly small, smaller than the fare at the Olive Garden down the road, smaller than the cheesecake sold in the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru.

God, what a meal.

We rode the hideous limos back to the hotel, and on the ride we figured out that Chris had eaten 36 ounces of cow, his salad, the cheesecake, and consumed a full gallon of beer, and he hadn't even used the restroom. Chris swore that on his next visit to Amarillo, he was tackling the 72 oz monster. I hope I'm not there. I would vomit.