National Book Awards Acceptance Speeches
Julia Glass, Winner of the 2002 FICTION AWARD for Three Junes
Photo Credit: R. Platzer/Twin
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GLASS:
Oh God, I think I felt emotions this intense only two other times in my life and that's when my new born baby sons were put in my arms. Only a whole lot fewer people were watching and one of them wasn't the astonishing Steve Martin.
MARTIN:
I was there.
GLASS:
Oh God. Well, I'll have to ask you about that
afterwards. And I'm not worried about catching a cold
because I'm on a heavy duty antibiotic because I had
laryngitis for the last two weeks and I'm really glad
I'm on drugs. Wow.
Well, you know what? I'm going to start with my thank
yous. Part of me is still sitting down there. I'm going
to start by thanking the person who never gets thanks
enough and that is Dennis Cowley, my guy, and the father
of our wonderful children. I have to say that for about
three or four years I was supposed to be working at
home as a journalist and an editor and I was sneaking
work on this novel. And he'd come home sometimes and
I'd say, well, I worked on the novel today and I had
a pretty good time. And he'd say, well, that's nice,
dear, you know, or the equivalent and I had this kind
of nobody asked, I won't show policy so nobody ever
saw any of it. I realized when this book came out and
I saw him holding it in his hands and he had this kind
of amazed look on his face that why in the world should
he have believed me, that that's what I was really doing
when I said I was doing that, you know? So Dennis, thank
you so much for believing that's what I was really doing
or doing a really good job of pretending.
Gail Hochman, my amazing agent. You know, people ask
me about my agent and she was the very first agent to
see my work and also the first person to read my novel
in its entirety. And many of you know Gail. I try to
describe her to people and I'm never very successful.
But she is so loyal, so affectionate, unbelievably energetic,
smart beyond belief but aggressive and no nonsense when
I need her to be. And I hope she's not going to take
this amiss but, you know, I've realized that the perfect
way to describe her is that she's quite a lot like the
border collies that are a centerpiece of my novel.
Now it was Gail who, in our very first conversation
about sending out my book, named a number of publishers
and she said, but you know, I think your book is going
to be really happy at Pantheon. And to Pantheon, I don't
have words to say what a wonderful experience this has
been. I know that publishing is a business but for me
it's been nothing but pleasure.
I have to say there are times when I just kind of thought
that my book was the only book they were publishing.
And in a year of my life that actually turned out to
be very, very difficult while my book was going through
the process of being published, everybody at Pantheon
treated me not just with the enthusiasm that you treat
a new writer whose work you've discovered, but with
the tenderness and patience that I thought was reserved
only for children. Wherever I go and whatever I do,
I will never forget that, and I mean, everyone that
I have known there. I especially want to thank Dan Frank
and Janice Goldklang and my tireless, all suffering
publicist, Kimberly Burns, who is not here tonight.
But Suzanne Herz, you've also been wonderful and I hope
you'll convey my thanks to her.
And my incredible editor, Deb Garrison. She's not just
my editor, she's my anchor, she's my cheerleader and
she's my guru. I just - I've had an incredible education.
I thought I knew everything, my friends think I'm a
big know-it-all and I thought I knew everything about
publishing but, Deb, you're my teacher. I love you.
Thank you so much. I know that without everybody at
Pantheon I really would not be standing here.
I also want to thank John Casey, Richard Russo and Michael
Cunningham who without knowing me from Eve, read my
book, loved it, blurbed it and have been wonderful to
me. I want to thank the National Book Foundation for
putting the stress on books. This is a room full of
people, beautiful people, smart people, but everybody
here including me is like a proxy for a book or a group
of books and I have to say that in the 24 hours between
the time I heard that I was nominated and I found out
the rest of the nominations, I thought my way through
all of the books of this year and how many incredible
books there were and I marveled at the thought that
books are these amazing - I mean, if you strip them
of their beautiful finery, these amazing objects that
are just very homely but transmute themselves into something
completely different when you read them.
A book can be a sailing vessel, a magic rabbit hole,
a tree house, a fabulous rich dessert, the wise crusty
grandmother you lost when you were too young to need
her to be around you, the naughty friend in the playground
who tells you the facts of life much too young and all
wrong.
I have a six-year-old son who taught himself to read
when he was four and a half. I had really very little
to do with it. The other day I saw something remarkable.
Instead of reading very dramatically and expressively,
which he does out loud to himself, I caught sight of
him moving his eyes along the pages of a book without
moving his lips. I had this amazing sensation of being
both really proud and really jealous. I thought, God,
this is like what I'm going to feel in ten years when
he walks in the door with a true love on his arm. Because
the relationship that we have with books, I think, is
one of the most intimate and fulfilling relationships
we have in our lives and I just felt - I felt very moved.
I have one more thing to say and that is that two years
ago, I was pretty far into the 44th year of my life.
I was vastly pregnant with my second baby and Gail Hochman
had just taken my book on - nobody else had seen it
- and she was showing it around. And sometimes I would
lie awake as you do an awful lot when you're vastly
pregnant and I would think who am I to think that I
can have a first book published when I'm this old?
And then I thought, but you know, there were a bunch
of doctors who told me I'd never have this second baby
and I kind of went along with it. And Gail sold my book
and all I have to say is that this is for everybody
who blooms late in life, whether you're a writer or
anything else because you never, never know.
Thank you so much everybody.