Letter from Joy
January 26, 2012
Hi, everyone. Again my apologies for not being
more prompt. I was hoping to get this letter out to you earlier,
but a number of events have conspired to thwart my ambitions,
among them a badly infected sinus and a broken foot! The New
Year has not gotten off to the greatest of starts, which
hopefully means that things can only get better from now on.
We're in Florida, where I had hoped to relax and work on some
new ideas as well as my golf game, visit with friends, and
generally have a good time in the sun before returning to more
northern climes, and at first it seemed as if everything was
going swimmingly in that direction. Alas, after a promising
start - our traditional dinner on New Years' Eve with our
friends Carole and Howard, a five-day visit from our friends Bev
and John, golf games and dinners with some of our Florida
friends, and then the much-anticipated arrival of my daughter,
Annie, her husband Courtney and their baby, Hayden, from
Toronto. Unfortunately when Annie arrived she was just getting
over a recent bout of pneumonia and still hacking away and very
uncomfortable. Her ribs hurt so much she was afraid she might
have broken one. (Luckily, it turned out to be more a muscular
problem than any actual breakage.) And poor Hayden was suffering
from a bad cold and his perpetually runny nose. (His nose has
literally not stopped running since he started daycare in the
summer!) So, of course, since he is rarely out of my arms when
we're together, I quickly caught whatever virus he was carrying.
My sinuses completely blocked up, I lost my voice totally for
three days, my glands got swollen, and I generally felt like
death warmed over. Then both Courtney and my husband started to
feel a little shaky. Then, to add the proverbial icing to the
cake, a small wrought-iron table fell over on my foot and broke
it! Unbelievable! At first, I didn't think much of it. I hopped
around for a few seconds in pain and then basically forgot about
it. Until I went to put on my shoes to go out for dinner that
night and discovered that my left foot had swollen to
approximately four times its normal size and was all purple. I
think that's probably when I started screaming. We went to
Urgent Care and they X-rayed my foot and said it was probably
broken, although with so much swelling they couldn't be sure.
They gave me a prescription for Vicodin, which I didn't fill,
and told me to see a foot specialist the next day, which I did.
He drained the giant hematoma and X-rayed my foot again, then
said it was likely a stress fracture, but we won't know for sure
for probably another week. So, in the meantime, he
triple-tensored my foot and put it in a walking boot, and I'm
hobbling around, unable to play golf or even go for walks. Not
much fun in Paradise these days. And my husband's cold has
gotten worse as mine has slowly improved. Thank God for
antibiotics, which seem to be helping rid my sinuses of their
nasty infection. I see the doctor again this afternoon to check
on my foot status and hopefully the news will be good, although
I'm in considerable discomfort as I write this. Anyway, enough
about the state of my various ailments. I just wanted to explain
why I've been a little tardy in getting this letter out to you
and reiterate my hope that not only will next month's letter by
more timely, but full of better news.
As for my writing, here there's good news and bad news. The bad
news is that it doesn't look as if my latest novel, SHADOW
CREEK, will be out before the fall of 2012. I won't know for
sure for a little while yet, and as soon as I do, I'll post the
news on
Twitter and
Facebook. I actually think that fall, 2012 will be a good
time, and I really hope it won't be any later than that, but
ultimately this decision rests with the publishers, not me, so
we'll just have to wait and see. The good news is that I will be
making a number of my older books available in the U.S. in
e-book form. These books have long been out of print in the U.S.
and include KISS MOMMY GOODBYE, THE OTHER WOMAN, LIFE PENALTY,
THE DEEP END, GOOD INTENTIONS, and possibly MISSING PIECES.
They'll be available both through my site and the various
internet engines, such as Amazon. We're in the process of
setting it all up now, and they'll be sold for a very nominal
rate, so I hope that those of you who haven't read them and are
eager to do so will do just that. Again you can check my
Twitter and
Facebook sites for further updates, and hopefully this will
all be in operation by the time next month's letter rolls
around. I'm quite excited about this and it helps offset the
disappointment over not having my book out to you this spring.
More good news is that I think the book I'm currently working on
is one of my strongest.
Now on to weightier matters: the Academy Awards! The nominations
were recently announced and I'm going to weigh in on my
predictions and selections. I confess to not having seen many of
the movies and performances and I hope to rectify that in the
coming weeks, so if I change my mind, I'll say so on
Twitter. For Best picture, my personal favorite and the one
I would vote for is Midnight in Paris, which I thought was
wonderful. I don't think it will win, however, although I think
Woody Allen will - and should - win for Best Original
Screenplay. I think the Academy will choose The Artist. While I
liked The Artist, I LOVED Midnight in Paris. I can't give you my
personal choice for Best Actress since I've only seen two of the
performances: Viola David in The Help and Rooney Mara in The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Viola Davis is always wonderful and
I thought Rooney Mara was terrific. Personally I don't think
Michelle Williams is pretty or soft enough to play Marilyn
Monroe but I hear she's terrific, and friends tell me Glenn
Close is also amazing in Albert Nobbs, but I think Meryl Streep
is going to take home the Oscar for The Iron Lady, although I
hear the movie itself isn't very good. As for Best Actor, I'd
give it to Brad Pitt for Moneyball, but I think George Clooney
will win for The Descendants. For Best Supporting Actress, I
would give it to either Jessica Chastain for The Help or
Berenice Bejo for The Artist. I think Berenice Bejo will win.
Best Supporting Actor will be Christopher Plummer for Beginners,
although I also loved Jonah Hill in Moneyball. Best Director
will likely be Martin Scorsese for Hugo, but I'd give it to
either Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist or Woody Allen for
Midnight in Paris. I think A Separation will win for Best
Foreign Film, although I'll be rooting for the Canadian entry on
strictly nationalistic grounds, since I haven't seen either - or
any- of this year's choices.
As for books, I just finished Stephen King's latest tome,
11/22/63, about a man who travels back in time to try to save
John F. Kennedy from assassination. I thought it was excellent,
almost impossible to put down, which is saying quite a lot for a
book that is almost 900 pages long. Next I'm going to read
either Diane Keaton's memoir, THEN, AGAIN, Michael Connelly's
THE DROP, or the late Christopher Hitchen's book of several
years ago, GOD IS NOT GREAT. Regardless of what one thinks of
Hitchen's politics or opinions, he was a great writer, a great
wit, and a great mind. I felt very sad when he died, as if I'd
lost a friend. The world, both literary and everyday, needs men
like Hitchens to challenge and provoke it. He will be sorely
missed.
And I'll miss my doctor's appointment, if I'm not careful. So
goodbye for now, and please stay out of the way of falling
tables. Till next month,
Warmly,
Joy Fielding