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AT A TIME
March 28, 2007

Zaid Abdul-Aziz is nearly sixty years old and the better part of seven feet tall. Thirty-five years ago was lifetimes ago for both us - our paths crossed in a certain way back then - but he has written of that time, and more. Darkness to Light is a charming memoir of his growing up in inner-city Brooklyn in the 1950s and '60s, his going to almost-all-white Iowa State University on a basketball scholarship, his years as an NBA pro (with several teams including Seattle), and transformations religious, political and those that come with age,time and being in the world.

He saunters in with some regularity these days -- checking on how his book is doing, engaging in talk about books, how they get out there. With Zaid, there has been a fair amount of talk about distribution - how books get into libraries, distributors, the online stores, chain bookstores, other parts of the country. He gets around - has spoken in libraries and bookstores around here, was at the NBA All-Star game, was back in Ames, Iowa (where his jersey number was retired), back to the hometown of New York. Wherever he goes, books also go. One by one, they sell. Many of us at this level do some of this advising or counseling. With someone like Zaid it more than feels worth whatever time, as he is generally trying to understand how it all works (and how oddly it does). He is keen on learning this, the same way he still seems keen on learning about life, curious about new things he's exposed to. I try to see this in some perspective: is this his coming of age in the late 1960s-early 1970s? He seems more curious about things in many ways than many I know who are much younger and are considerably less worldly. 

One way or another, a few months ago, I mentioned to him that Edward P. Jones would be coming to town, that he might want to check that out. (Some other time there will be an Edward P. Jones story or two here; he merits a few.)  With Zaid it was simply saying he might want to watch his reading for the story collection, All Aunt Hagar's Children. He came, not only was taken by the reading, but also by being part of an audience of some hundreds of people there in the Seattle Public Central Library (the Rem Koolhaas building) auditorium. He got introduced around, met many on his own, made all sorts of contacts. Since, he has said that reading The Known World was changing things as he's known them. He's not the only one on that front.

This Wednesday, Zaid was in with some perplexity - and some company. The perplexity was money. He's shipped all these boxes out - various wholesalers, some direct sales, some online entities. All of that is great. It's happening, there are calls and orders every day. But how long it is taking for the money to actually come in. The money is there on paper, but not yet in his pocket. He has these costs, bills due now. How does this work, man? He talks about the terms one wholesaler offered - a minimal discount if he wanted money in 30 days, a better one if more time, and still better terms if he would wait 60 days or more.  Ah, welcome to publishing, especially small-scale publishing. I didn't so much have solutions as consolations, and stories of others who have endured this dilemma. The upshot of this (surprise), is wondering if we could expedite our own payment due him. I go check with the ever-forbearing (with me) Irina. She is in the middle of some major accounting project, and can't that moment, but very, very soon.

The 'company' was a young woman - Zaid's niece via his wife. We chatted a bit - where she was from (France), what she does (bilingual translating work for business), how long she's been here (two-three months, now going back soon). She's clearly if quietly fluent in English, though I still ventured some of my tepid French her way. Zaid said he'd taken her to a Sonic game or two, but he hadn't done his part for the 'countrymen' aspect by not introducing her to any of the Sonics' three French-speaking players. Whether or not she'd be appreciative of the conversational possibilties, I figured they would be. Some more visitng - this while I was also ostensibly working the floor, helping other customers. She was perusing this book and that. I thought of one in particular.

Laila Lalami is a unique marvel, beyond my describing here - in part because she is such a master, in every way, of the blogging world. Her blog, www.lailalalami.com (nee moorishgirl.com), covers literature, politics, and culture from many perspectives. Home for her is Portland -- her site includes all sorts of Portland literary listings. Right now she is back in her home country of Morocco, getting work done on a novel, thanks to a major fellowship award. Her site is most all and always in English, but she taps into things written in French and Arabic, and she reads/clips/cites things from the press all over.

An aside: I am always intrigued, drawn to, those who carry this perspective that is larger than their own work, whether it's through a labor-of-love blog so extensive as Laila's, doing all that the McSweeney's/Believer/ 826 crew does, other editings, anthologizings, translating (Murakami translating so many into Japanese), even things such as Calvino's work with Italian folktales.

Laila Lalami has her own work, also, the spare, yet-full-limned book of linked stories that is Hope and Other

Posted by Rick Simonson on March 28, 2007 | Comments (0)