The reason you haven't heard from me for a while is as simple as this: overwork. I've been so busy I haven't even had time to dig trenches in the back yard or haul (much) rock down from the mountains, a miserable state of affairs indeed. And why do I dig trenches? In order to fill them back up. And why do I haul rock? In order to break it into very small pieces with a very large hammer. But enough. I sit here tonight in a state of advanced relaxation as the semester comes to a close and I entertain the delicious prospect of almost three whole weeks without having to travel anywhere. At the end of this period, as you may know, I will board the big howling steel death trap and wing it for New York. As Sandye has apprised the messagistas, I will be in Manhattan again this year for The New Yorker Festival, reading with Donald Antrim at 7:00 P.M., Friday, May 18, at Joe's Pub at the Public Theatre, 425 Lafayette Street. The April 9 issue of the magazine lists this number for info.: 1-877-847-TNYF and the site www.newyorker.com. I don't know definitively about these things until I am standing in the wings and someone gives me a shove, but I am thinking perhaps of reading "She Wasn't Soft," a story reporting on one heartbreaking skirmish in the ongoing war between men and women. I've never read it aloud and think it might be good fun. Something new, oh yes indeed. Further, as reported below, I will be travelling at the end of May and early June to Germany, Switzerland, Austria and France for the release of A Friend of the Earth in those countries, and I will post information regarding my appearances when it becomes available (the posting for February 15 gives the rough itinerary, which still holds true as far as I know. I hear that the Cologne date is sold out, however.) My German publisher, Hanser Verlag, informs me that Ein Freund der Erde is off to a very good start and some strong reviews.
    We have settled on a cover for After the Plague , which I give you here, as well as the jacket photo, taken last week by my old friend Pablo Campos. The very stimulating background is provided by one of Pablo's recent canvases.
    And so, as the night deepens and the crickets bestir themselves, I will go back to my occupation of the past hour: watching the Dodgers with the sound off and reading with great joy the James Atlas biography of Saul Bellow, to which I was attracted by the very wild review in Harper's (last?) month. And by the way, what I cherish most in literary biographies is the account of the early years of artistic struggle, the years of penury, wife-beating, dog-kicking and abuse from the critics, because I know that the artist will eventually triumph, if only for just the shortest, sweetest breath of a time. Messagistas, wherever you are, guten abend.