The protest's target. Photo credit: Cajun Tomato
I didn’t set out to chronicle bestselling author Tucker Max’s signing event last month when I walked into Powell’s Bookstore in Portland. I just wanted to find a book to read on the plane flight back to Louisiana a few days later.
But the protest outside the store grabbed my attention. It wasn’t the number of protestors, but their signs and chants that sparked my curiousity. Their words were angry, even cartoonishly so in some instances.
The object of the protestors’ vitriol? None other than Tucker Max, a writer whose odes to his own debauchery I had heard about but never actually read. So I wrote about his book signing and questioned why the protestors raised their objections, not in a way that made people want to leave the store, but rather in a way that made people, like myself, want to find who the wizard on the third floor was.
I wrote about the protest at Max’s book signing for my own amusement. I didn’t expect it to get many page views. At best, it would be something funny to share with friends. To my surprise, people searching on the Internet for “Tucker Max” and “Tucker Max Portland” read my post. That included one of the protestors, who shared a unique and enlightening view of the event.
All in all, it was a positive experience.
Fast forward to Tuesday around lunchtime. I was sitting on my couch, 2,500 miles from Portland, eating ravioli when I clicked on this site to check for activity.
Surprise, surprise. There were several hundred new page views, despite more than a week’s worth of inactivity. My first thought, being ever the optimist (ha), was that something had gone terribly wrong with my site.
I composed myself and checked the referring web sites. The reason for the spike … dun dun dun …. was none other than www.tuckermax.com.
Max it turned out had recently wrapped his book tour for Assholes Finish First, his second collection of hedonistic tales of womanizing, drunkenness and other episodes of debauchery.
On his web site’s blog, Max wrote a tour wrap-up and listed a handful of links under the title “more press.” The seventh link was mine, listed as “A funny review of the Portland signing.”
I’ve never received a shout out from a bestselling author, much less a self-described asshole like Max. The recognition made me proud. So did the hundreds of page views that came along with it. Max’s fans sure are interested in all things Max-ian.
I’m sure some would cringe at being recognized by or associated with Max. I’m not one of them. His books stir emotions, particularly among young adults, that are largely dormant among readers (or non-readers) my age. I respect that, regardless of the content some find objectionable inside his book.
Now I might just have to read one of Max’s books and review it. Or at the very least make plans to chronicle another store protest the next time Max goes on tour.
For more on Max, check out:
http://www.tuckermax.com/blog/the-assholes-finish-first-book-tour-wrap-up/
http://cajuntomato.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/tucker-max-book-signing-inspires-bizarre-protest/
