Lucy atkins

Last night, I was invited to the posh Randolph hotel here in Oxford. It was the first time I’d set foot in this proud old dame since my 21^st Birthday  – yes, a lifetime ago. It was boiling hot, and I was nervous, because I was there as the guest of a group of book lovers from America. They were in Oxford for a literary tour – the latest inspiration from the well-known indie bookshop in Kansas City, Rainy Day Books. http://www.rainydaybooks.com and I was invited  to talk about The Missing One, along with Cambridge author Menna van Praag.

I didn’t know what they’d make of me or my novel, which isn’t published in the States till February 2015. Feeling seriously shy, I told myself I could always just eat, smile, and slip away early. Vivien Jennings, the warm and sharp-eyed owner of Rainy Day Books, welcomed me in the lobby and ushered me into an overheated reception room. The first thing I saw among all the new faces was the USA proof copy of The Missing One.

I’d been consulted about the American cover design, and I love it. It’s so different from the British one – darker, more mysterious (and with whales! Whales, apparently, don’t sell in the UK, but red dresses do: who knew?). But I hadn’t seen it in the flesh and it felt surreal. Having lived in the States for a total of 8 years of my adult life I’ve bought a lot of American books,  and there’s a definite design ‘feel’ to them that’s different from the feel of British books. As I weighed this American creation in my hands, I felt briefly overwhelmed: it seemed so ‘other’, I almost couldn’t believe it was my work.

The Kansas book lovers turned out to be warm and enthusiastic, intelligent, humorous and kind.  And wonderful Vivien is a powerhouse –  the last author Rainy Day Books hosted before the tour was Hilary Clinton and Vivien brought her granddaughters along, to show them what empowered womanhood looks like (as if they needed Hilary!). The next author at Rainy Day Books is John Cleese. Vivien knows the book industry, and writing, inside out and I could have talked to her all night about her life.

As I ate dinner in this most quintessentially British hotel  – the very place where I celebrated becoming an adult, surrounded by these American readers each with a copy of my American book, I stopped feeling nervous and shy and  I had this strange sense that something was completing itself. On this hot, sticky night in Oxford it felt as if two separate parts of my identity were yoking – the part that has been so happy and feels so at home in the States and the part that is rooted here in Oxford, the city where my children are happy. And it had all been brought together between the covers of my book.

There’s no place like home, but Rainy Day Books just shot to the top of my list of places to visit next time I go to the States.