This a story about A Great Mind in Decline, aka I’m Losing It Big Time.
One year ago today was my wife Barb’s birthday, so as is my tradition, I went out and bought her a book by her favourite author, Maeve Binchy. (Just to get under Barb’s skin, I used to always call her hero Maeve Bitchy, by mistake, of course. These were misfires on my part.)
Barb and I have been married 22 years and fortunately, Maeve is a very prolific writer and has been able to keep me supplied with birthday presents, Christmas presents and even Valentine’s Day presents. But apparently old Maeve is slowing down and this is complicating my life.
A year ago, I bought my wife Maeve’s 2010 release, Minding Frankie. Barb loved it. Six weeks later, I was back in the stores looking for her Christmas book. I found it, wrapped it up and she opened it Christmas morning.
“Oh, Minding Frankie,” she said. “I love that book.” The one I had gotten her six weeks before was sitting out in the open on a coffee table within sight of us all as we opened our gifts.
Ha, ha, ha. Dad’s an idiot.
So there I was today, almost 11 months later, looking for a gift for Barb again when I picked a Binchy book off the shelf. I phoned my son and asked him to ask his Mom what the words Minding Frankie meant to her and I instructed him to make sure he didn’t tip her off that this was the title of a Maeve Binchy book.
“It’s a Maeve Binchy book,” I heard her say in the background. “And I got it twice last year.”
As the saying goes, I have a wonderful memory but it’s very short. Tomorrow I am writing a stern letter to Ms. Binchy, instructing her in no uncertain terms to get off her aspirations and write some more books. This retirement of hers is killing me.
In any case, who ever heard of a writer retiring? Writers don’t retire, they just get the ultimate rejection notice one day from their publishers by way of their readers.
With any luck, Binchy will join other great novelists such as Agatha Christie who, after retiring or passing away, keep producing best sellers with their name on them but written by others. Great franchises are hard to abandon.
And who knows? Maybe some day long into the future, you’ll be reading Jim Hagarty stories written by some other poor sap who was also dropped on his head as a kid.
©2011 Jim Hagarty
