The Writer, My Idol

When exiting Amsterdam Central Station, it’s impossible to pass by the little bookstore near the exit/entrance, without looking inside. Today I saw her new book there, stacked in big piles. I went in, picked one up and flicked through the pages.

When I started to work at my publishing house, the mention of her name used to make me nervous like a little girl. I had read all her novels and admired her. Her books seemed to take me inside her head and her world, and I felt at home there. Her stories had a certain delicacy and sensitivity that I liked very much. She herself was a lady: calm and eloquent, carefully formulating her thoughts. I considered myself a real fan. And now I was actually going to meet her, and work for her! The mere thought made me blush and happy inside.

And then we met.

When I was able to look past the first blinding light of her stardom, it was a shock to see the real woman behind the writer. She turned out to be a very complex ego, someone who, blinded by all the flattering around her, had started to believe in her own myth. And she was living it out: she was whimsical, at times completely unreasonable and impatient, and she loved to demonstrate her power. She pushed people around and expected them to be at her beck and call. In short: not a very pleasant woman to work with. And that was exactly what this was: work. Just work. At one point she left our publishing house, to join a more prestigious one.

I read the first paragraph of her new book.

It sounded interesting enough.

But I could still feel the disappointment. Not because she had turned out to be an unpleasant person, but because I lost something of value there and then. She had made me feel like that young girl again, whose world was shocked when she realized that being an elderly person doesn’t necessarily mean being a wise person. This writer had forced me to uproot another core belief: someone who writes good books isn’t necessarily a good person.

I took her book to the cashier to buy it.

Fortunately, the reader in me is not such a sensitive soul.

She’s really only interested in good stories.