Some books have to be written all alone on your couch in the middle of the night so no one sees you fall apart while you write. And some you have to draft in a coffee shop in broad daylight so your material, mined from trauma, doesn’t kill you without witnesses present. In short, some books — though they wreck family secrets and break hard silences — just have to be born even though it hurts. A lot.
I went to listen to a talk by two authors freshly through this furnace of composition: Laura Carney of New York (the middle-of-the-night writer) and Melanie Brooks of New Hampshire (the coffee-shop-by-day writer). The two were set to discuss their new books, Carney’s “My Father’s List” and Brooks’ “A Hard Silence,” at the West Asheville Library last Friday night. Each book tells the true tale of the author’s beloved father and each explores a protected secret. (I won’t tell you the secrets — you’ll have to join me in reading the books.)
I footed through the snow at twilight to the library door, where a flyer splashed with Brooks’s face bore the words: Canceled due to weather.