On November 4th, everyone I met at the Crimson Bar at the SoHo Hotel in London wanted to know what I was doing at the Crimson Bar at the SoHo Hotel in London, when, hello, history was being made in the U.S. I replied sheepishly that I’d voted early for Obama by mail, a) being anxious to get that vote in and counted, and b) never being one to turn down a swank company flat in London. All hail the democracy-enhancing features of the US Postal Service, whereby I got to vote and swig cocktails with editor Gillian Green and the rest of the folks from Ebury Publishing, who chose the night of our history-making election to celebrate the launch of their new fiction imprint, Ebury Press.
Over at the Ebury blog, they’re offering a free lit-packed goody bag to the first five responders who say where they were the night of the election. Here’s the post.
After lots of meeting and greeting with U.K. booksellers, retail buyers, press, and seven other Ebury authors (including Brit camp comedy sensation Julian Clary and the extraordinarily sexy burlesque diva Immodesty Blaize), I went back to the flat in Westminster, where my husband and son were sleeping, and stayed up with BBC, watching the election results come in. Finally I couldn’t keep my head up, and went to bed feeling pretty good about the prospect of an Obama presidency, but still nervous that McCain might somehow pull something out of his hat at the last minute. What a relief, then, to wake on Wednesday morning to the news that Obama had won the election, with a sound popular edge and a huge electoral sweep.
On the morning of November 5th, we left for Paris by way of Eurostar. On the way to St. Pancras station, our driver explained that he had to take a wonky route because Trafalgar Square and every other sqaure in the vicinity had been shut down “due to the elections.”
“We have an election here,” he said, “you wake up the next morning and everything is the same. But you have an election in the U.S., and we wake up and London is upside down.”
It was swell to be an American abroad and feel that people were looking at you thinking, “way to go!” instead of, “Get the hell home, you war-mongering wanker.” Headlines in the newspapers in London and Paris were celebratory, and even the Parisian cab-driver whom I talked to the next day on the way to have lunch with the French publisher of The Year of Fog said that, for the first time in years, he was happy to have an American in his cab.
We got home from Paris last night. I am pooped, but I am proud. GO OBAMA! And now I have about five thousand emails to go through…over and out.
