Rolling With Joe
Author JA Konrath is on the road this summer crisscrossing the US. If you live in a small or medium sized country you might not that be impressed with the miles Joe is logging; you can drive all over the Benelux countries and not get very far. I drove from Frankfurt am Main in Germany to drop someone off at the airport in Luxembourg. It took about twenty minutes but for all the fuss at the border where the Duchy’s pantalooned guards seized a round of Ementhaler. Then there was the backup near the Phinius T. Bluster Memorial Aqueduct where a half dozen Peugeots had gathered to die.
Konrath is putting the Intersate System to good use. At the same time MJ Rose is touring the blogosphere promoting her latest novel The Venus Trap. While Joe is wedged into some kind soul’s Plymouth wagon, MJ is home. Joe is reading the Howdy Stranger sign at a Motel Six near Akron while MJ is sipping Pinot Grigio in the familiar surroundings of her living room.
Both authors are on tour. MJ is missing the smell of diesel at dawn, the slap of the sixteen wheelers on concrete, Conway Twitty on 50,000 Watts of Jesus fueled downhome AM Radio, crystal clear from Mobile to Rock Island. She cannot have a Hallejuhah. MJ will not know the special Monongahela Omelett with the dill pickle and tobasco chaser that makes Mabel’s Keep On Truckin’ the place to eat in the Ohio River Valley. Joe knows: he knows that the Red Roof Inn is actually is a brighter shade of orange almost vermillion when the heat shimmies from the asphalt parking lot in the late afternoon. We’re rollin’ with you Joe because we know in our hearts that without pain there can be no gain. Joe’s on a Road Trip and sweet choruses of Angels will thunder by and great puddles of greasy rain will cascade from the Jack in the Box sign. MJ is going to miss seeing that.
MJ, you have our sympathy. You’ll take a little jaunt to the market and as you pull into the driveway that FM radio will yield the opening chords of Houses of the Holy and you’ll wish the state of Iowa was filling your windshield just to jam with Plant and the boys. You know that’s gonna happen, girl.