There’s Always Someone

by Barbara Conrey

I hosted a book club a few months ago and invited the author whose book we were reading to join the meeting. I thought it would be fun. The book club members love to meet authors and always have questions that have nothing to do with the book but everything to do with what it’s like to be an author.

The book (which shall remain nameless) was well-received, and I looked forward to an enjoyable evening. Except it wasn’t.

When it came time for member discussion, the first person to raise his hand was the only man in the room. I don’t know about your book club, but mine is open to both men and women, although we have only one man that attends regularly and then one or two others that I think only drop in when they’re looking for some tasty after-dinner snacks.

But that night, we just had the one man (who shall also remain nameless, so I don’t get sued.)

“So,” this man asked, trembling with eagerness to address the author, “Do you want to know what you got wrong?”

The room went silent. The other members (all women) looked at each other, but no one looked at the author. Or the man. I looked for a rock to hide under then quietly apologized to the author, who, I might add, was a far better person than me because she addressed this man without a hint of sarcasm.

The author smiled and addressed the man and his question. “No, I don’t know what I got wrong. Please tell me.”

What she got wrong was less than a paragraph about defense contracts. Defense contracts are what this man did for a living before he retired. So he knew everything there was to know about defense contracts, and he wanted to point out that the author didn’t know enough.

How vital were defense contracts to the story? Not very. The protagonist’s husband—I honestly don’t remember his name—worked with defense contracts. There were (maybe) four sentences in the entire novel about what the husband did for a living. But those four sentences needed to be addressed. At least, this man thought so.

The moral of this story, because I always need there to be a moral, is that all authors try to get it right. We want the facts to be correct. But we’re not perfect; sometimes we miss things, and that’s okay because there is always someone willing to point those things out to us.