In Which I Go to Taylor Swift's House

Ok, ok, I was next door. But still!

Here’s the thing about book touring—I love it. You can tell I love it. In David Sedaris’s new book, he writes about how, during the pandemic, he decides that when he’s able, he wants to tour 365 days a year. My feelings are not quiet that extreme, but yes, David. Seeing new sights, meeting new people, getting to be a creep and look at Taylor Swift’s house in Rhode Island—these are the perks of publishing a book.

But first I had to get there. Behold, my lunch of champions on the Amtrak. I was heading to Watch Hill, Rhode Island, you know, where Taylor Swift sometimes is.

The event was part of the summer author series at the Ocean House hotel. You hear the words ‘ocean house’ and you know it’s going to be good, but dang. (I did not stay at the Ocean House. I stayed at a Marriott. The Marriott is not an exciting place to be. Let’s stick with the Ocean House.)

I mean. Taylor’s house just out of frame.

Meet my new friend Deborah. I’m obsessed with her. She’s a novelist (her new book, Reef Road, will be out in November, and is a Palm Beach murder pandemic novel, which checks many boxes of my interests) and she also owns the Ocean House and that’s literally only the tip of the Deborah iceberg. More to come.

The booksellers from the Savoy/Bank Square Books empire were wonderful. Thank you, Olivia and Stephanie and Katelyn and Linda!

After the event, Deborah whisked me away into a private dining room for a very fun and boisterous dinner, but before that, she gave me an art tour. These enormous Bemelmans murals were painted on the walls of a restaurant in France and now they’re in the Ocean House and just, dang, Deborah. (Deborah gave all the credit for the art in the hotel to her husband, Chuck, but Deborah is my new friend, and so I give the credit to her.) Want to see more amazing art? Okay! The following photos are dark, I apologize, it was nighttime and I was not about to start setting off my flash in this fancy hotel.

A James Marshall!

A Maurice Sendak!

A lil’ Truman Capote. I almost stole these, but if I had, then I wouldn’t have been able to post about it, because it would have been too big of a clue, and Deborah writes thrillers, and so she totally would have caught me. An absolutely unbelievable collection of illustrations, I was gobsmacked.

Claire and Becky are in Deborah’s writers’ group, and we had such a great time. Okay, just briefly, a few more of Deborah’s credits: she played Erica Kane’s sister on All My Children! And she was the love interest in Just One of the Guys and she’s lived a million lives already and like I said, I’m obsessed. When she drove me back to my hotel, she stopped and showed me Taylor’s house. I exercised great restraint and did not attempt to scale the gate.

I stopped by the beautiful Savoy bookstore on my way to the train station. Here is Jess, who accepted my gift of donuts (booksellers love donuts, a universal truth) and told me about their Open Agenda program, “a way to queer it forward,” where customers can buy LGBTQIA+ books for their special little free library, which is located in their kids section. These were the books I bought for the shelf, which means if you’re in Westerly, swing on by, and these will be waiting for anyone who needs one. How totally cool. But that’s not the only cool thing at Savoy.

There are three of these little fairy doors, each with a little scene inside. I crawled on the floor to peek inside, scaring a small boy. I regret nothing.

What I’m Reading:

I just finished Javier Zamora’s memoir Solito, which chronicles his migration from El Salvador to the United States as a nine year old boy, with a series of coyotes paid for by his parents who were already in California. It is a stone cold masterpiece. You’ll be hearing about it from every direction this fall, but you heard it here first. An absolute masterpiece. I know that I used that word twice. That’s how you know I mean it. I read with my heart in my throat and did not burst into tears until the last sentence. What a person, what a writer, what a book.