And there it was, waiting for me in the mailbox yesterday.
And yeah, after the weirdness of the other day, just in hearing about it, I was a bit prepared. Nevertheless, it was quite a moment… Yeah, it's done. And here it is, in my hands…
Complete with blush-inducing tag-line from the Montreal Gazette: "One of our most promising and original voices"… I'm just going to sit here quietly and wait for the other shoe to drop…
A note for posterity: There aren't very many of these, distributed chiefly to the media and the trade, as is usually the case for ARCs. Collectors disagree about whether an ARC constitutes a true first edition or not — I'm not going to leap into that fray (I save my opinions for fountain pen and Springsteen boards). However, I will say this: this ARC DOES constitute a variant printing, if nothing else. Yes, as is typical of ARCs, there ARE minor textual variations between this and the final version — I spent ten days going through these pages word by word at the beginning of the month — but that's not what sets this version really apart. THAT would be the title page.
Take a moment — you'll see it.
Yeah, that.
For the record, it makes me smile… And yeah, I had it fixed.