101. On first impressions
And a long-anticipated meeting.
Dear Reader,
We all know not to judge a book by its cover. That first glance can mislead; throw us off. Let’s save our verdict for when we’ve had the chance to weigh up the evidence; once we’ve got to know the book or – stepping away from the book metaphor for a moment – the person behind the first impression.
Hang on, though. First impressions do count, right? Judging from what an online acquaintance told me in a conversation over the ether just last week, I feel they still count for a lot.
This person1 had told me this:
…..two of my accessories while working in a proper job were, along with a suit/jacket and tie and, indubitably, double cuffed shirt with cufflinks, a Moleskine notebook and fountain pen.
In response to my comment ‘Gosh, quite the snappy business dresser!’ he replied with the following, which made me instantly regret my cheekiness:
It was because I thought it very important to be a good role model for my students. And it gave me the moral authority to insist on high standards of presentation from them.
And there we have it: the importance of making a good impression.
On a couple of occasions this year I have dabbled in the potentially risky business of picking up mystery books: literary ‘blind dates’, if you will.
My first such purchase cost me a princely pound from the Oxfam charity bookshop in Cambridge. The neat, brown-paper-wrapped parcel had drawn me in with the word ‘THRILLER’ on its spine and the handwritten keywords ‘political thriller/mystery’ across the front.
As I described in my June post ‘A blind date with a book’ my papery date and I hit it off in a big way. When I’d first spotted the phrase ‘political thriller’ I found myself hoping that my purchase might be something along the lines of – and maybe even as good as – ‘House of Cards’ by Michael Dobbs, a book I’d read as a teenager.
Oh Reader, I laughed. JACKPOT!
On a subsequent trip to an independent bookshop in Tring – a seller of brand-new books rather than second-hand – I took advantage of a savings deal. Wrapped books populated a basket just inside the doorway, a sign reading ‘£3.50 each, or two for £6’.
Information as to what lay beneath the neutral brown wrapping was even scarcer than on my Cambridge book.
‘I like that you’re doing mystery books!’ I told the smiling lady behind the counter.
‘Well, that’s just what we do with books that have been slow to sell.’
I felt immediately sorry for them, and scooped up two of the parcels – ‘Thriller’ and the slimmer, tautological ‘Modern and Contemporary Fiction’ – in a reading rescue mission.
Not only did I already have a book on the go, though, I was already champing at the bit to start the following volume in my pile. The books I’d rescued from the papery pound would have to wait a while.
We were away for the whole of last week for work, and with only a few chapters left of my b-i-p (book in progress) I’d popped the still-wrapped ‘Thriller’ into my locker in the campervan.
It was with some excitement after breakfast on our last morning that I came to unwrap it while were waiting for the van’s kettle to whistle on the gas ring.
‘The Girl at the Window’ wasn’t a title I’d heard of, nor did I know the book’s author, Penny Joelson.
I read the blurb2.
Who is the girl in the window?
Kasia watches the world go by from her bedroom. She’s not well enough to leave the house, but she sees everything.
Then Kasia witnesses an abduction… but nobody is missing. Does the girl in the window hold the key to the mystery?
‘Okay…’ I murmured. I opened the book for a flick through. To my surprise the text looked larger and more widely-spaced than I’m used to, and the chapters were short.
‘Oh, it’s a children’s book!’ I reported, putting the book down. I was disappointed.
The kettle by now having hit its requisite high note, Jim handed me a cup of tea. Feeling I might be wasting my time I settled down to start reading.
‘Well? What’s it like?’
‘It’s okay. No, it’s good, actually!’
Two chapters in and already I knew that the narrator enjoys creative writing, doesn’t go to school because she’s ill, and is someone who really notices what’s going on around her even though she’s confined to her bedroom. Threads of a story were already twining themselves around each other.
‘And it’s not a children’s book – it’s YA.’
‘YA?’
‘Young Adult.’
My mind flashed back to the last time I’d read any YA. Back when was commuting daily across London on the Tube with my nose in one of the early volumes in the Harry Potter canon I’d lost count of the number of times I missed my stop thanks to being so engrossed in Rowling’s storytelling.
‘Girl in the Window’ had me hooked now, too. My initial disappointment had been misplaced: the story is compelling, and now that I’m three-quarters of the way through it I’m finding I’m still looking forward to every opportunity I get to sit down and read some more, just like I looked forward to reading in my youth.
The fascinating Bookstacked article linked below explores whether the Harry Potter books should be categorised as young adult fiction or children’s fiction.
Is Harry Potter YA and what is YA anyway?
First impressions, then, might not count – heck, I’d got my initial judgment of my latest read absolutely wrong – but an impression will nevertheless always be made on us whenever we come across something new for the first time.
Or someone.
I like to think that I don’t judge people before I’ve got to know them, but I do nevertheless notice things about them. I look for myself in other people; I seek ways in which I might relate to them. I ask myself whether we have anything in common.
I might notice that someone passing me in the street is as tall as me, or if our photographic subject on a shoot is using his or her left hand to sign my model release form. The chap at the Village Stores might be having a difficult day and is looking grumpy, but I know him, and I know he’s really nice.
Sometimes we get to know people without first meeting them in person. I fell in love once with a deep voice on the phone, and when its owner and I finally met, well: hello, new boyfriend!
At work I had a tricky telephone relationship with my counterpart in the German office (I’ll call her ‘A’) but enjoyed daily jovial banter with our mutual colleague (‘B’) in the Belgian branch. When the staff all converged in London for the company’s Christmas party I was stunned to find that I didn’t gel with B at all, whereas A and I became – and for years remained – unexpectedly close friends.
Those first impressions in that remote telephonic context, then, had borne no relation to their later real-life ones.3
All of this makes me more than slightly trepidatious of my imminent first meeting with my regular penpal right here on Substack, Terry Freedman!
Dear Reader, like you I’ve been getting to know Terry through our shared correspondence, but I don’t yet know him in person.
It seems so long ago that I wrote him my first letter. We’d set out initially to discuss the very British topic of the weather but soon found all kinds of other things creeping into our correspondence. Having set out with the intention of writing three letters each, when we stopped after those first six just before Christmas I felt something was missing from my routine.
I missed our letters.
😭
The new year saw us re-establish our letter-writing habit, and with this renewed vigour came a new flavour of light-hearted humour. Good-natured ribbing became the order of the day, and before long Terry and I were each giving as good as we were getting, exchanging cheeky insults with every letter we wrote. I found I couldn’t wait for his next pithy installment in running response to whatever blue touch paper I’d lit the previous week.
This writer I’ve never met – my partner in letter-writing crime – is someone I already count as a friend. We get on well here on Substack, but will our real-life first impressions of each other be as successful?
Reader, I’ll let you know!
We’re meeting up in London, and this time I won’t be letting any young adult fiction make me miss my stop on the Tube.
Love,
Rebecca
Ha!!! Did you think I was leaving it there? Look!
⬇️
I’m bracing myself for Terry’s own report of our meeting, but there’s more to follow from me, too.
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊
📚 Recent reads 📚
Here are some of my recent highlights in the Substack reading stakes:
📚 In her beautiful post about a solo walk,
of wrote the following:In my contemporary fiction, Passage, Annie (the lead character), solo-hikes up Maria Island’s Bishop and Clerk as a journey of absolution after her husband dies in a cruel farm accident. I traversed the same route with my husband before I wrote the book so that I could walk in Annie’s shoes. Often, whenever I return to the island, I think of Annie and her passage through smothering grief to a place of peace and acceptance.
On Saturday, I walked alone like Annie, but my heart wasn’t broken. I still had my soulmate. But I listened to the bush song through Annie’s ears and looked at the bushland through Annie’s eyes.
You can read Walking in Another’s Shoes right here.
📚 This post from
by is a delightful exploration of the back-of-book ‘blurb’.📚 I write to Terry. Terry writes back. The company of
of is a real Substack highlight. Here’s his latest ‘Start the Week’ for your reading pleasure.📚 And last but not least, in this beautiful report of her recent visit home to Manila to visit her parents
of showed me all that matters. ♥️If you’ve enjoyed this post, please let me know by clicking the heart. Thank you!
Thank you for reading! If you enjoy ‘Dear Reader, I’m lost’, please share and subscribe for free.
Terry Freedman, writer of Eclecticism: Reflections on literature and life
Taken from the back of ‘The Girl in the Window’ by Penny Joelson, published in 2018 by Electric Monkey, an imprint of Egmont UK Limited
Oh, apart from that deep voice on the phone. 😉
Thanks for the mention, Rebecca -- in TWO contexts. I will be writing about our encounter soon (snigger).
The thing about well-written children's books is that they are extremely well-written. I still remember several of the books I read as a child. The blurb of the book you're reading now sounds intriguing. Do write a review after you've finished won't you?
It's really wonderful to see both of you in the same photo, chatting together!