By Wally Lamb, Special for USA TODAY
Back in 1992, long before there was an Oprah's Book Club, I got a phone call at home. "Hi, Wally. What are you doing?" the woman asked.
By George Burns,, Harpo Productions
1999 flashback: Author Wally Lamb and Oprah Winfrey discuss his 'She's Come Undone' on her TV talk show.
By George Burns,, Harpo Productions
1999 flashback: Author Wally Lamb and Oprah Winfrey discuss his 'She's Come Undone' on her TV talk show.
"Laundry," I said. She laughed and said she was Oprah Winfrey. Yeah, right, I remember thinking. You're Oprah and I'm Geraldo Rivera. But as the conversation continued, the imitation was just too convincing. I pointed at the receiver and mouthed to my wife, "It's Oprah." She looked confused. "Okra?" she said. "The pope?"
Oprah was calling to tell me she had read my just-published book, She's Come Undone, and to scold me. "You owe me two nights' sleep," she said with laugh. She went on to explain that she was an avid reader, and whenever she read a book she enjoyed, she tried to track down the writer to say thanks.
In 1997, Oprah phoned me again. "Hi, Wally," she said. "Are you still doing the laundry?" This time she was calling to say that she had selected Undone as the fourth novel in her wildly successful book club. I was to keep it a secret until she announced it on her show, she instructed.
Then she put her producer, Alice McGee, on the line. It was after hours on a Friday, but Alice told me I would have to contact my publisher that night. To meet the anticipated demand, hundreds of thousands more copies would have to begin printing immediately. It couldn't wait until Monday morning.
It didn't.
On Saturday morning, members of the publishing house held an emergency meeting. Pulp was ordered, numbers were crunched, and printers worked overtime to meet the expected demand.
A few weeks later, Oprah held up a copy of my novel and recommended that her vast audience read it. A Boston Globe article about the selection captures the frenzy that followed. Above a photograph of me seated before a class of high school students, looking stunned, one shoelace untied, a headline asks, "WALLY WHO?" My roller-coaster ride had begun in earnest, and I haven't gotten off it yet. To date, She's Come Undone has sold millions and millions of copies.
Oprah's third call came the following year, in June 1998. My second novel, I Know This Much Is True, was about to be published, and I was seated in my New York hotel room across from a Book of the Month Club reporter. Oprah famously loves to surprise people with great news.
"Guess what, Wally!" she exulted. "Your new novel is going to be our summer Book Club pick!" A veteran, now, of the need to keep such news a secret until the big announcement, I said: "Well, thank you, ma'am. I'm just finishing up an interview now. Could you give me 10 minutes and call me back?" Oprah laughed and said she would give me 15 minutes.
When my interview ended, I walked the reporter out to the elevators and dashed back down the hall ? only to realize that I'd locked myself out of my room. One mad dash down to the lobby later, new key in hand, I entered my room and sat by the phone. Thirty minutes went by. Then 60. Well, I told myself, if she never calls back, I just won't mention it to the publisher. But call back Oprah did, and I Know This Much Is True, like its predecessor, rocketed to the top of best-seller lists.
From that day to this, I remain enormously grateful for Oprah's endorsement and still sometimes shake my head and wonder why this happened to me. Other novelists work just as hard and write books that are as good, if not better, than mine. In trying to answer the why of my good fortune, Oprah has been a great mentor and role model.
Was it Oprah or her mentor, Maya Angelou, who said, regarding worldly success, "Take what you need and pass on the rest"? Since those heady days of my Oprah show appearances, I have written two other novels and am closing in on a third. Perhaps more important, I have tried as best I could to give back, supporting initiatives that aid the poor and the poorly educated, the mentally ill and the incarcerated.
Oprah Winfrey is the real deal: an avid and intuitive reader, a terrific teacher, a smart businesswoman, and a humanitarian who has used her power to make ours a better society. Like so many other people, I've been blessed by her generosity and goodwill, and as she takes on new challenges, I wish her the very best.
Fiction writing is a strange business when you think about it. You sit down and weave a network of lies to explore deeper truths. The cherry atop the sundae of my Oprah experience was that very first call she made to tell me that she had found my novel to be a worthwhile read.
It was not about her show; it was about the connection that exists between a writer and a reader who wanted to say that the truths I had unearthed in my story spoke the truth to her as well.
Amber Valletta Rachel Perry Natasha Bedingfield Kim Smith Rebecca Mader
