Bridget McNulty

Strange Nervous Laughter

// August 18th, 2007 // Durban, Love, Strange Nervous Laughter, Writing

So I finally have a good answer to, “When’s your book coming out?”

“Next year sometime,” is wildly disappointing, “In a couple of months,” kills the conversation. Dead. But “next month,” now that’s a good answer. All of a sudden people are perking their ears up, asking me what the title is again (Strange Nervous Laughter), asking me about the cover (uber-cool), asking me all sorts of questions I don’t know how to answer, but that make me feel like a real Author, which is a delightful feeling.

I get the sense that a lot of people thought I made up the whole book publishing thing, and that now they’re beginning to second-guess their suspicious natures as it looks like it might actually happen. Ha HA! I say.

But only under my breath.

The thing is that I can’t really believe it’s happening either. Every time I walk past an Exclusive Books I try and imagine Strange Nervous Laughter in a little pile on the table, but I can’t. Not yet. (This isn’t strange behaviour, by the way. I have it on good authority that other authors have done this in the months and weeks leading up to their book launch.)

The next question everyone asks is, “So what’s it about?” which, let me tell you, is near impossible to answer. But I’ve formulated a somewhat rambling answer in need of a good edit, and it seems to do the trick.

Ready?

‘It’s set in Durban, and it’s three stories intertwined, each with two main protagonists. It’s kind of about why people act the way they do, which is what I’m fascinated by, and about love [this makes people look at me like I've written a Mills and Boon, so I have to quickly say] but it’s not a romance. It’s about what love makes us do, being in love or out of love, or on the brink. And there’s a pinch of magical realism and quite a lot of black humour…’

Then I sort of trail off, and end up saying something lame like, “I really like it.” Which is a ridiculous thing to say, because of course I really like it, I’ve been working on it nonstop for months and I’ve sliced out a huge chunk of my heart and put it down on paper.

But by and large people are understanding. What I’dlove to do, though, is just spout a stream of words (with no conjunctions) that describe what it’s about. Which would be messy and incomprehensible, but fun.

So here goes:
Strange Nervous Laughter is about (in no particular order)

• love
• sex
• food
• Durban
• heat
• the sea
• childhood being carried into adulthood
• corpses’ toenails
• garbage
• small dusty supermarkets
• motivational speakers
• expectation
• aloneness
• pick-up lines
• travelling
• picnics
• family (or lack thereof)
• parent-child bonds (or lack thereof)
• small
• china ornaments
• scrunchies
• instant connection
• gradual fading away
• falling in and out of love
• dependency
• dates
• what’s left unsaid
• what we can’t say but want to
• gentle lies
• holding on
• cynicism
• beauty
• spite
• searching
• tea
• lots of tea
• all-green food
• loneliness
• whales
• fulfillment
• Only Great Love Will Do
• and more.

I’m pretty sure I’ve exceeded my word limit for today.
More tomorrow.