Philip Kerr US Book Tour, April 14-22, 2011

Comments

• Moderators

  April 2011

  The book tour in support of Field Grey starts this week, beginning in NYC on Thursday. If any of you attend any of the appearances, please snap a few photos and send them to us. We'll put them on the site.
  
  And if you attend any of the events, please post a little write-up here on how it went!
  
• molly6

  April 2011

  We had so fun listening to Phillip Kerr. My son, 6 years old, said , "That was good fun." Pk talked about 1 hour long. We never went this book shop, Minneapolis,MN about 6 blocks away from our house. It was raining and windy-good weather for a crime.
  
• molly6

  April 2011

  >>> molly6
  We had so fun listening to Phillip Kerr. My son, 6 years old, said , "That was good fun." Pk talked about 1 hour long. We never went this book shop, Minneapolis,MN about 6 blocks away from our house. It was raining and windy-good weather for a crime.
  
  
  They were about 30-40 people.
  
• Tom_B

  April 2011 edited May 2012

  I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when I went to see Philip Kerr this evening at the Boston Public Library. I don’t attend too many events like this, but when I have, they’ve generally been author readings, with a Q&A and a signing. Mr. Kerr, to my great delight, confounded my expectations in the best possible way. The event took place in a beautiful, high-ceilinged room in the old section of the BPL, all cool marble and murals, holding an audience of roughly twenty to thirty people. Mr. Kerr spoke at great length about his childhood, his family, his religious upbringing and growing up in Scotland. Clearly, all these formative relationships and experiences greatly influenced his desire to be, and subsequent development as, a writer. I suppose I wasn’t surprised at how great story teller Mr. Kerr is, but I wasn’t expecting him to be so darkly hilarious. He has a wicked black sense of humor and a real self-deprecating way about him. Although sticking to a clear structure, his talk ranged, with asides leading to asides, but always winding its way back around again. One thing I really got from Mr. Kerr is the sense that he doesn’t take himself too seriously, which isn’t the same thing as saying he doesn’t take his work seriously, because I’m sure he does. But there’s something very refreshing about an artist who can invite others to laugh along with him regarding life’s absurdities, even his own, rather than demanding some sort of hushed reverence. Mr. Kerr, it seems, shares with his most famous creation a deep reservoir of sardonic wit. In fact, without mentioning Bernie very much at all, the entire discussion functioned as an indirect character biography of sorts: Bernie’s genesis came into view, with subtle skill, as an outgrowth of his creator.
  
  Mr. Kerr related, what I imagine, are some rather painful memories from his youth, without sounding self-pitying in the least. I found it powerful how this sense of being an outsider in a homogeneous society must have impacted his interest in his subject matter, even though he never explicitly drew our attention to this connection. It’s just not his style, I take it, to try and put too fine a point on anything. This lead to a rather humorous (or, for some, perhaps frustrating) Q&A session. Being a natural story teller, Mr. Kerr seems forever drawn to the story behind the story, always digging deeper or going off on a tangent, which lead to many fascinating asides and not one apology for not answering a question more directly. In fact, when someone asked him a specific question about a potential future Bernie plot point, Mr. Kerr took the opportunity to speak at length in almost mystically terms about where stories come from and how writing with a pen on paper differs from typing on a computer (it all made lovely sense if you were there). While some might prefer direct answers to direct queries, I really liked how Mr. Kerr prefers to let the books speak for themselves, while giving us a peak into his process as a writer.
  
  Later, when I approached Mr. Kerr during the signing, my sole comment to him was how “entertaining” I found the event, which didn’t seem odd to me until the words passed my lips. I realized at once that perhaps I was making the whole thing sound like a spectacle or standup comedy routine, but he greeted my compliment with a humorous wry look and a polite thank you. The thing is, I don’t think I expected “entertainment”, in its most fundamental sense either, but it ended up being that and a lot more.
  
• Moderators

  May 2011

  Gary and Pat hosted the Minneapolis stop of the tour at their bookstore Once Upon a Crime. They sent this report to BernieGunther.com:
  
  "We just adored Philip Kerr. He was so much nicer than his picture - but I guess the publisher feels that he needs to appear as gruff and tough as nails as Bernie is. Who we met - by Philip's own admission - was not really "Philip Kerr" but some cleverly disguised alter-ego of the author. Whoever he was, he was totally charming and engaging. The audience loved him - perhaps even more than Bernie. We had a great time - one of our best events to date.
  
  "Mr. Kerr talked for about an hour, which passed too quickly. About 40 fans were in attendance. I brought my camera, but was so distracted listening to him - and later selling books - that I forgot to take any pictures. Besides, as Mr. Kerr said at the start, that wasn't really him but an impersonator."