August's Prelude
The grips and the cameramen are all in place, he can see, and there's a long pause when someone calls for silence on the set. August utilises that pause to take a long, slow breath and a sip of water.
He's where he wants to be after three years of trying to be a break-through best-selling author, then another year trying to land a movie contract, and now he's here on Oprah's Book Club. His sales will skyrocket. He'll have enough money to never worry about his finances ever again.
It's a dream come true, and he only wishes his father were here to see it.
Oprah turns in her seat from getting her mic readjusted by the A2 and smiles at him across the curved, glass desk. Her smile, synonymous with success, makes him smile too.
August relaxes into the high-backed cushioned seat and straightens his cream waistcoat and black jacket. He feels useless and prone out of leather, off of a motorbike or away from his dad's old typewriter. But the studio is warmer than he's used to on a chat show, and at least it's comfortable.
Only the best for America's First Lady of book recommendations, he thinks, looking over the peach-coloured set and glancing at the sepia-tone picture background panels. The screen beside him, behind the desk, flickers to life, and Oprah's Book Club logo spins slowly, rotating on its axis, and will continue to do so until it's time to take questions from the public.
He's been briefed about etiquette and all manner of other crap, but he's not worried about screwing up the live webcast. He has the most silver of tongues when he wants something this badly. His legs are aching today though, and he can feel his right knee twitching. He's sure he'll make it through just fine, but he's already stipulated before the interview not to shoot a low angle, so if he needs to stretch his legs he can.
It's all worth it, he tells himself. All this media and the whole circus surrounding him and his book is worth it. He's always wanted to be a successful writer, and now he is one. He just needs to get out of the mind-set of the travelling loner who goes where he wants to with his one-man band, and into August Wayne Booth, best-selling author.
The floor manager comes out from backstage – a place where August wouldn't mind finding her later, especially with all her flowing blonde hair and skin-tight jeans – and puts a finger to her pink lips, drawing all gazes and holding the silence before throwing up her other hand and signalling five, four, three, two–
Oprah gives a wide, warm, pearly-white smile towards the camera. "Hello, Book Clubbers! Welcome to our live worldwide Book Club event. We're coming to you live from Harpo Studios in Chicago. Hello to everyone on Oprah-dot-com and CNN-dot-com! Anderson Cooper, hello to you!"
"Hey, Oprah, how's it goin'?"
It's strange hearing the man in the earpiece the A2 gave him without seeing him in the studio or on any of the screens dotting the set.
"I can actually hear you, Anderson! We've had problems from you before," Oprah teases, glancing at August and coaxing an easy smile from him, before 'turning back' to the audience. "Anderson will be joining us in just a bit, but here with me is writer August Booth. He is the author of the most powerful story I have read in a very long time – Paradiso, our book club's selection. August has travelled all the way from Phuket in Thailand to join us tonight. So, welcome! Welcome, welcome, welcome."
August tries to ignore the cameras and the crew, like he's been told and trained to, and simply focus on the woman across from him in the red dress – who is taking his hand in hers to squeeze in greeting – and the people at home watching on their computers.
"Thank you," he tells her sincerely, returning her gesture. "I'm happy to be here."
Oprah smiles, letting his hand fall back to the glass desk top and turning back to the camera. "Well, throughout our webcast, we'll be taking your questions about this...beautiful book, Paradiso. Our phone lines are now open and the number to call is on the screen. And, as you can see, you can e-mail us your questions too. The Book Club team will be reading all of your e-mails, and they might just call you at home. And for all of you Facebookers, you can post a comment or let me know what you wanna ask the author the most. What's your burning question? Before we get started, let's have a quick look at the story that makes up this brilliant book, Paradiso."
In his ear, he can hear Oprah's voice. The floor manager nods to the two of them, holding out her hand to indicate five minutes of VT time for the audience. August lets himself relax and gives the woman – Laura, was it? – a smile. She smiles back.
"Paradiso," he hears through the earpiece as he thinks about a late dinner and candlelight, "is a novel set in downtown Los Angeles. First-time author, August W. Booth, tells the story through the eyes of two people, John Tupelo and Gracie Shaw, masterfully capturing both the stigma and exclusion that immigrants can find in coming to America."
August wonders what visuals they're using in the video, but knows that the production designer and the show's producers are good at what they do. They'll make this interview the best he'll ever give.
"The book opens on Gracie," Oprah's recording continues, "who has moved from Australia to chase her dreams of being a writer but who has fallen on hard times. She moves into a half-way house called Paradiso Rooms, and it is there we meet the male protagonist, John Tupelo, who is a back-room shark hardened by years of being a social pariah. We take a journey with the unlikely couple, who fall through friendship, hardship and romance, and we see if paradise can truly be found anywhere."
The dull red light on the main camera flicks on and the floor manager gives a thumbs-up. Oprah picks up and holds aloft a copy of August's book, which he's already signed pre-emptively in case she wants to keep it.
"The reason I chose this book," she tells the audience, "is because I think that this story allows us to see America through a newcomer's eyes, to see how we appear to strangers, which is especially important since we, as a country, place so much importance on good image. This book will spread your heart wide open. As soon as I finished I wanted to track August down and ask him so many questions!" She turns to him, laughing. "Do you remember that call?"
"Yes, I do." August chuckles himself, trying to appear approachable but also remembering how he'd put the phone down and had the urge to leap for the fucking ceiling.
"You were very happy!" Oprah reminds him, grinning.
"Of course, I had Oprah on the phone."
She laughs, putting her hand to her chest. "I mean, I've never been much of a fan of books set in L.A., or New York, or wherever – because there's such a big cliché over that – but, I mean, Anderson said he wasn't a fan of the same thing, and then he really enjoyed it. Didn't you?"
"Enjoyed it is putting it mildly," the guy's disembodied voice drawls. "It's one of those books that you pick up and start reading and just can't stop. You get sucked into it, and you see the commonality in these two people. You can walk in their shoes for a little bit. John's a man doing some terrible things, but you can also see that he's not such a terrible person. It really just got to me, and you can see all these issues that we have as a country, alienating people."
"Exactly." Oprah nods, turning back to August. "So, August, tell me – what made you decide to write this book in the first place?"
He's prepared for this question, to bring the past to the fore for everyone to hear.
"Well, I lived in Thailand for many years after my father died, when I was eighteen, trying to forget about him and all my troubles." August pushes back the memories of girls and booze and pain. "And it worked, for a little while. Phuket's a beautiful, amazing island full of pleasures, and the perfect place to lose oneself. But some weeks after I turned twenty-six, I was diagnosed with distal muscular dystrophy."
"Could you give us a little explanation?" Oprah asks, in that soft and interested way of hers that's won her so many hearts and awards.
He gives a short smile. "Of course. It's a type of degenerative disease that weakens the muscles of the body, mainly, in my case, in the legs. The doctors tell me I could live to a ripe old age, but the dystrophy is accelerating where it would usually only begin to show up in my late forties. I'm thirty-one."
She nods, letting that sink in for a moment, before asking, "And was it because of this that you decided to write the book?"
"I realised that it didn't matter where I was, my past would catch up with me." August gives a soft and almost-humourless laugh, looking her in the eye. "Even in actual paradise, it wasn't my paradise. I wanted to be healthy, to have my father back – so many things – but I realised that I had to find it in what I have. That's why I wrote the book, to tell people that paradise is what they make of it – that it's not a store-bought, corporate run-off, greeting card kind of thing."
"And why Paradiso for the title and the hotel? Italian, my sources tell me."
"For my father," he replies, sitting back and slowly stretching his right leg. "He was from Italy and we lived there for many years when I was younger. I always remember it being beautiful."
Oprah smiles. "Will you move back there?"
"I'm already in progress," he says, knowing this is the perfect opportunity for an extra plug. "Once the film is finished, I'm flying there and staying."
She throws her hands together, glancing at the camera. "Oh, yes! The movie! Anderson, I hear it's being shot down there in L.A., where you are. Care to enlighten us?"
"Yes," he says slowly, obviously getting the information through a feed. "It's going about that Rumfold Gold, cast as Tupelo, and Belle French, who's playing Gracie, flew in respectively last night and this morning for a meeting in Hollywood. Gold, what with his background and training, I'm sure will be able to pull off a stunning performance, but I'm not sure about French. She's new to Hollywood and a little green, I hear."
August almost laughs, thinking of the meeting he'd had with the director and producers when they were doing casting calls. Belle French had been perfect – a fireball with a demure outer-shell, just like Gracie – and with exactly the right background for the part.
"Anderson," August says, smiling at the camera. "I can only tell you I have the utmost faith in the casting director, but I also took time, personally, to see that the actors playing my characters are the very best for the part. I think Belle French will do very well. Fans of my book won't be disappointed."
"That's great news," Oprah adds, "because the book is so wonderful it deserves the best treatment Hollywood can offer. It's set to be out next March, isn't it?"
He grins at her help plugging the film that's even surer to be a box-office sensation now that she's spoken kindly about it. "That's right."
"Well, I look forward to seeing it," she says enthusiastically, as the floor manager points to the prompter. "And now we have Jocelyn from Boston on the line to ask August a question – don't you just love being able to be in another person's living room? Jocelyn, hello..."
As he listens to the woman in his ear, gushing about the way he wrote the gratuitous sex scenes, he only half-watches her face on the screen, now in use, beside him. The rest of his attention drifts to the floor manager, who's turning to go back stage and is looking over her slender shoulder at him.
"Well, Jocelyn, I think it's incredibly important to show those aspects of a relationship, and not just because they're a lot of fun."
There's laughing and the floor manger smirks, and, oh, he's definitely got a date tonight.