During the three years I spent researching
Sin in the Second City, I spent most of my time wearing ratty jeans and a baseball hat, hunkered down in the dark corners of libraries, sifting through musty old archives. I became so immersed in the material that I would rarely break for lunch, and instead crouched in a bathroom stall and gnawed ferally on a cereal bar and rushed back to my seat so I didn't lose my train of thought. I became a bit of a recluse; most of the people I talked to happened to be dead (fortunately, one doesn't have to be alive in order to be interesting). Which is all to say that the hermit mindset is conducive to research, but promotion ? not so much...
I flew into Chicago last Thursday, the day after a launch party at the Museum of Sex in New York. My friends, Fales and Roberta, picked me up at the airport and announced that we "have some work to do." I was pretty beat from the festivities ? all I wanted to do was curl up on a couch and nurse my champagne hangover and try to convince myself I did nothing too embarrassing and cling to the consoling thought that at least my mother wasn't there ? but instead I found myself at a bar in the Hotel Sax on Dearborn Street, far north of where the Everleigh sisters once reigned.
Fales and Roberta both happen to work in public relations, and call themselves, respectively, "The Pimp" and "The Witch." Fales came armed with a copy of Sin, a review of the book in that day's New York Times (which she insisted I "laminate immediately") and a leather satchel for collecting business cards. "I'm telling you," she said, "it's all about connecting with people, engaging them and directing the conversation."
Roberta and Fales conferred and decided to work opposite ends of the bar. Fales approached the bartender, ordered a wine flight, and gave me a shove.
"Do you want to meet a famous author?" she asked. "She was in the Times today. Hugh Hefner is reading a copy of her book right now. She's going to be on Oprah."
All of which, the Times review notwithstanding, was news to me.
Roberta appeared, a guy in a three-piece suit by her side, whom she introduced as "Nelson." Nelson, she said, was going to help us spread the word. Fales was delighted to have a new recruit, especially one of the opposite sex, since he could go places we couldn't, like the men's rest room, and slip copies of my book under the stalls. By the end of the night, she had concocted a back story: Nelson (whom Fales nicknamed "Half Nelson") and I recently divorced but were still on amicable terms. We were hawking copies of my book in order to support our young son, Quarter Nelson. I don't think we sold any books, but Nelson did pick up the tab, which Roberta insisted counted for something.
This guerilla pimping, as Fales called it, continued the next day. We hit this fabulous BYOB Mexican place called Wholly Frijoles out in Lincolnwood, which Fales picked precisely because there's always a long wait for tables, and patrons usually gather out in the parking lot and drink. By the time we were seated, Fales had invited every tipsy passerby to a grand ceremony in which Mayor Richard Daley would be presenting me with a key to the city. While I perused the menu, she handed a copy of my book to the waitress and repeated the word "prostituta" over and over again.
I was still unconvinced any of this was working, but I didn't want to seem ungrateful. I had gotten in the habit of standing idly by while Fales delivered her pitches, each more outlandish than the last, and then piping in at the end to ask for business cards. On our next outing, we went to sign stock at a few suburban bookstores. As we left a Barnes & Noble, a car pulled up next to ours. The driver rolled down his window.
Fales nudged me. "See?" she said, excited. "He knows it's you!"
"Excuse me," the man said. "Do you know how to get to Drury Lane?"
Undeterred, Fales suggested we stop by a crowded Noodle & Company for lunch. As the cashier rang up our order, Fales waved the (still unlaminated) New York Times review and launched into her spiel. When she stopped, I felt compelled to fill in the silence, and asked if he had a card.
The kid blinked. "A card?" he asked. "What's that?"
I looked at him more closely. A constellation of pimples spread across his chin. He couldn't have been older than seventeen.
"Do you think I'm someone important?" The kid was laughing now. "I work at Noodles & Company."
The kid clearly felt sorry for me, and gave us a wad of coupons toward our next meal at Noodles & Company. Which, I suppose, counts for something.
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Karen Abbott worked as a journalist on the staffs of Philadelphia magazine and Philadelphia Weekly, and has written for Salon.com and other publications. A native of Philadelphia, she now lives with her husband in Atlanta, where she's at work on her next book. Visit her online at sininthesecondcity.com.