Reunion Beach Elin Hilderbrand (best selling autobiographies .TXT) 📖

We stayed in touch via email and Facebook. When Dottie learned that I was working on a book about Greek, she told me that the protagonist of her latest book was from Corfu. At a book festival in Savannah, she met Colson Whitehead and Jay McInerney, who she thought might be a cousin. She was a big fan of other writers. Her twelfth Lowcountry tale, Queen Bee, came out a few years later, in May of 2019, and Dottie was all over Facebook and Twitter promoting it. That August, I saw a note on her Facebook page from her family, stating that she was in the hospital. Less than three weeks later, on September 2, 2019, came the announcement that she had died, of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a bone-marrow condition, at the age of sixty-seven. Tens of thousands of people expressed their sadness on her Facebook page; the memorial service, at Grace Church Cathedral in Charleston, was sure to be mobbed. Luckily, those of us who could not make it to Charleston had only to open a book to be with Dottie. In her breakthrough novel, Sullivan’s Island, the plucky narrator, Susan, gets a job as a columnist for the Post and Courier, and when her teenage daughter—impressed, for a change—asks her what she’ll do if she ever has to write about death, she replies, “That may possibly be the toughest question I’ve had to answer all day, but even death has humor, wakes and funerals especially. I guess I’d advise people not to take hams to the bereaved.”

About Mary Norris

MARY NORRIS joined the editorial staff of The New Yorker in 1978 and was a copy editor and proofreader there for more than thirty years. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, she lives in New York and Rockaway.

Also by Mary Norris

Greek to Me

Between You & Me

Making of a Friendship

Jacqueline Bouvier Lee

I remember the first time I saw Dorothea Benton Frank, I thought I had won the grand prize by being able to attend one of the biggest book events in the United States. Little did I know the real gift was about to come into my life dressed in pearls and a crisp white shirt.

The size of the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City is overwhelming, and this Southern girl was just excited to be at a book event in the middle of Manhattan. Book Expo America is the largest annual book trade fair in the United States and many up-and-coming authors as well as established authors are seated at booths to showcase upcoming titles.

I was new to the book business and I needed authors. I knew that event was the place to find them. I walked the aisles scouting authors and handing out cards trying to make deals with writers who I thought would be a good fit for my South Carolina store. Later I would find out how author tours actually worked; to say I was “green” was an understatement.

I had been told I needed some strong authors if I wanted to jump-start my career as a community relations manager. Not one soul was interested in coming to the Carolinas to do an author signing. I decided to take a break, grab some lunch, and regroup. Fully nourished I said a little prayer that maybe the afternoon would be kinder to my pursuit.

I continued my trek among the hundreds of bibliophiles, some carrying suitcases to take home all of their treasures. I make a right turn and hear a woman talking to an eager reader about peaches and using the word “ya’ll.” When I saw the large pearls around her neck I knew we would be friends forever.

I listened as her fans regurgitated different stories word for word from her books. They knew her characters, they knew the different islands Dottie so vividly described in her books, and they all seemed to know about the infamous toothbrush scene from her first book. That toothbrush came up several times, as it would throughout the many years we spent together.

Finally it was my turn to meet this vision of Southern loveliness. I explained who I was and which big box book company I worked for. I explained what I was trying to do and gave her my card.

The first words out of her mouth were I would be glad to come to your stores, she promptly gave me her email address and phone number, and the rest as they say is book history.

That first signing was a doozy! We held it in Florence, South Carolina, a store that I later found out was much too small of a venue for Dorothea Benton Frank. There were so many people in that store that I am sure we were breaking the fire code. She never flinched or said anything to me about not having enough chairs. Instead she regaled the audience with stories of how she would accompany different members of her family from Sullivan’s Island to Florence to buy false teeth. The audience loved it and roared with laughter, and each one had to tell her their favorite story about false teeth as they came through the line. One lady even took hers out of her mouth to show Dorothea what a good job they had done.

That was one of many of Dorothea’s superpowers: she was relatable and her fans loved that about her.

Dorothea was always there to help you if you needed something (superpower number two). I can’t tell you how many times her fans would come through the line and say they needed help with a charity event, or that a local library might be closing. She always asked what could she do to help?

I loved how warm and funny Dorothea was, she was that way to each and every person she ran into. A lot of people I have worked with over the years are one way to the fans and a completely different unlikable person once