Today I had the quite remarkable pleasure (usually the arrival of Fedex makes me, inexplicably, anxious) of seeing Fedex pull up outside our house with, as it turned out, an advance copy of The Exquisite, just back from the printer. Amazing the feeling of holding the first copy (well, first for me) of the finished thing in your hands -- hard to describe. I actually couldn't look at it for a while. Eleni went over it as Eva hollered and climbed on things. I've been working on The Ex since '98, and to have it now, at hand, as a book ready to go out and brave the world -- well, it's pretty wonderful. And quite moving. Not least because Coffee House makes such great-looking books. This one will be the first paperback original of the novels (The Paris Stories, from Smokeproof, was paper too) -- so happy about that. Seems to me (and there has been quite a good deal of discussion about it in various venues) that these days novels with any kind of a kick are likely to be better served by paperback.

The Ex won't be generally available until Sept 1. But I couldn't help but shout out it's arrival. Even if it's just, for now, to 1180 Edinboro Drive. And the Coffee House offices in Minneapolis.