Dispatch 12: Chris Cander and The Weight of a Piano go to Minneapolis
February 28, 2019, by Chris Cander
Houston author Chris Cander’s “Dispatches from Book Tour,” a multi-week blog series of reflections and updates along her 17-city U.S. book tour for her new novel The Weight of a Piano (published by Knopf), continues with Dispatch 12, from Minneapolis.
February 19, 2019 (Dispatch 12)
It was 0oF in Minneapolis when I boarded my flight from Houston this morning. Fortunately, I have the constitution of a polar bear, so was delighted. My sister-friend Ellory, whom I met 14 years ago when my husband was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN to receive a kidney transplant, picked me up from the airport, and we got to spend some time together before tonight’s event.
It was cold enough to thin the herd of readers, but even with the weather, there were close to 20 in attendance at Magers & Quinn Bookstore. The small crowd made for an intimate gathering, and after I talked about and read from the book, my dear friend and fellow Knopf writer Peter Geye led a conversation about The Weight of a Piano. I was moved by a woman in the second row, who said that four years ago she’d chosen Whisper Hollow for discussion at the Minnesota chapter of the American Association of University Women, and had been awaiting the arrival of my next book. Her sincerity almost made me tear up. I’ve always known the transformative power books can have on people’s lives. But recognizing, perhaps for the first time, that my books might also was quite a special moment for me.