I Am What I Am

Neil Gaiman sent me an email yesterday. It seems I made an error or two when I told you this story.

First, the charming elderly gentleman who drops dead on the karaoke stage in the first chapter of Anansi Boys in fact lived through his performance of "What's New Pussycat." It was his next number, "I Am What I Am," that killed him.

Further, the name of the non-fictional Caribbean island is Saint Andrews, not St. Andrew.

Finally, it's not 300 people, it's 500. And it wasn't a character, but the narrator, who explained the theory — on page 284 of the Harper Collins mass market paperback edition, HarperTorch imprint, to be precise:

"It is a small world. You do not have to live in it particularly long to learn that for yourself. There is a theory that, in the whole world, there are only five hundred real people (the cast, as it were; all the rest of the people in the world, the theory suggests, are extras) and what is more, they all know each other. And it's true, or true as far as it goes. In reality the world is made of thousands upon thousands of groups of about five hundred people, all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other, trying to avoid each other, and discovering each other in the same unlikely teashop in Vancouver. There is an unavoidability to this process. It's not even coincidence. It's just the way the world works, with no regard for individuals or for propriety."

So the other day, in addition to the valuable lesson about the lavalier, I learned that, when writing about a novelist and his work, it's best to wait until Hollywood Tom returns your book, rather than trying to quote from memory.

Postmodern Sass is looking forward to meeting Neil Gaiman in person in November, but first, she wonders if she'll get her social security card before she reaches the age at which she'll have to start collecting it.