Life on the road with Susan Orlean
Author talks packing light, coping tools for flying
Susan Orlean, the New Yorker writer and book author, is on a five-month, North American zigzag to promote “The Library Book,” her newest bestseller. And in between speaking engagements — while she is idling in hotels or awaiting delayed flights — she is teaching herself to play the ukulele, strumming under the tutelage of Youtube videos and ukulele apps. Her repertoire already includes the Grateful Dead’s “Uncle John’s Band” and “Ho Hey,” by The Lumineers. “I’m not a great relaxer,” she said over breakfast in a midtown Manhattan hotel on a late November morning, dismantling the impressive heap of pancakes that had been placed in front of her.
“The Library Book” weaves together the stories of the 1986 arson fire of the Los Angeles Library, the history of libraries and Orlean’s personal connection to these institutions. Reviewing the book for
The New York Times, Michael Lewis wrote, “Susan Orlean has once again found rich material where no one else has bothered to look for it.” Orlean is also the author of “Rin Tin Tin,” a biography of the canine movie star, and “The Orchid Thief.”
As Orlean travels to cities like Seattle and Dallas, she has shared on her Twitter feed (309,000 followers at last count) the highs and lows of months spent on the road. “Exit row with no one in the middle seat. In a past life I must have done something good,” she wrote one day. “Lemme tell you, book tours aren’t for sissies,” she wrote two days before.
Over an unhurried breakfast, Orlean, who, when she is not on the road, lives in Los Angeles with her husband, John Gillespie, and their son, discussed her travel strategies for doing laundry, staying calm during takeoff and the “transformational” foot rest she has discovered. This conversation has been edited for space and clarity.
Q: You travel. Do you enjoy it?
A: I went through a period where I became afraid to fly. I was about to begin my “Orchid Thief” book tour and I thought, “I have to deal with this.” So I went to a hypnotist. The first time I flew after I had gone through hypnotherapy — as the plane was taking off, which had always been the moment I would be gripping the seat and nearly tearing it off the body of the plane — I turned to my husband and said, “I think I’m going to get a pilot’s license.” And he said to me, “What did that guy do to you?”
Q: What do you bring with you on a fight?
A: Noise-canceling headphones. And this foot sling I just got, which is transformational. You attach it on your tray table and it becomes a foot rest. I can’t recommend it enough.
Q: How do you pass the time on a flight?
A: Sometimes I’ll do tasks that are usually so tedious that I would never be able to do it at home. I’ll spend an hour going through my contact list and update it. There is a lot of stuff I do on planes that I don’t do anywhere else. I play this little silly game on my phone called Bejeweled and that I have never, ever, ever done on the Earth’s surface. Similarly, I have never eaten a Biscoff cookie except at 35,000 feet.
Q: Checked baggage or carry-on?
A: My husband taught me that bag checking is the work of the devil.
Q: How do you pack for a long trip using only a carry-on?
A: I have one outfit that I wear for all my public events, a backup in case anything should happen. Then I pack one pair of jeans and two tops. I handwash my lingerie. That’s the only challenge.
Q: When you are traveling for leisure, do you like to chill on a beach and explore a city?
A: I’m always happy to be somewhere beautiful, but I’m always much more interested in a place where there is something cultural to do. It’s the reporter in me.
Q: When you are on a book tour, do you ever get to see the places you are visiting?
A: Yes. I had a few extra hours in Tulsa [Oklahoma] and so I got a Bird Scooter and I scooted around downtown and I discovered to my amazement that Tulsa has a beautiful collection of Art Deco buildings. I never would have imagined it, and it was really one of the highlights of my whole trip.
There was a church there called the Boston Avenue Church. I couldn’t get into it, which drove me crazy, and I’m determined to go back. It’s an absolutely stunning building, Art Deco, and it turns out if has a really interesting history. It had always been attributed to this male architect, and years and years and years later it turned out it was designed by a woman. I thought, “What a great story.”