A really friendly, really smiley guy. "No way!" he says, looking at me. "For real?" And I say, "Yeah. For real." And two of his friends are standing there, a guy and a girl. And the guy friend says, "Listi...hmmm....I think I've heard of you before.  And I say, "Really?"And my fiancee says, "Listi means thief in a strange Mediterranean dialect."And the guy friend says, "Really?" And I say, "I'm pretty sure." And then the girl says, "How long did it take you to write the book?" And I gave her the standard explanation of how it took me about six months to write the manuscript, but to say six months is kind of misleading, because in reality it took me several years and many unsuccessful attempts before I was able to write the manuscript in six months, and so on. And then the girl says, "How much time went by in between when you finished the manuscript and when it got published?"

"About a year," I said. "It generally takes a year between acquisition and publication." The girl nodded. Then the first guy, the original guy, he said, "Jim Carroll gave you a blurb. He read it?" And I said, "Yeah. Jim Carroll read an advanced copy when it first came out." "That's awesome," the guy said. "I'm totally buying one." "Yay!" my fiancee said. "Will you sign it for me?" the guy said. "Fuck yeah I'll sign it," I said. "What's your name?" "Norm" the guy said. "Thanks, Norm," I said. And then I signed his book. And then I handed it to him, and I shook his hand and thanked him again. And then my fiancee and I waved goodbye to everyone, and we thanked the bookstore people again, and then we walked away and got on the escalator and made our way down to the ground floor.

"That was nice," I said. "That guy seemed totally familiar." "You don't know who that is?" my fiancee said. "He looks familiar," I said. It was Norm Macdonald, the comedian, formerly of Saturday Night Live.I totally know who he is. I just couldn't place him last night. At any rate, he seemed extraordinarily baked. And he couldn't have been nicer or more generous. And he was trying to buy a painting off the wall in a Barnes & Noble. Turns out he could have. In fact, that B&N employee lost the company a $600 sale!!

Listi's novel focuses on a character named Wayne Fencer who has come to San Francisco to attend the funeral of an ex-girlfriend who committed suicide. When he learns that she aborted their unborn child, he embarks on a search for meaning through some of the most influential events of the past ten years. Haunted by regret and wonder of what could have been, Wayne\rquote s quest for a real connection and romance takes him up and down the East Coast on foot, down to Cuba, across the American West in an R.V., and to the middle of the Black Rock Desert. His journey finally leads him to Burning Man -- the ultimate experience in self-expression and reliance.

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