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Subscribe!What Not To Say To A Bank Teller
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
A recent article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the prevalence of bank robberies in the wintertime made me think not only of eerie parallels with my new book but also about an unexpectedly interesting encounter I had at a bank last year.
I had just moved to the Atlanta area and had finally gotten around to setting up a local bank account. I was sitting in the office of one of the bank managers, and in setting up the account I mentioned that I couldn't do direct-deposit paychecks, as I'm not paid in regular cycles like a typical employee. So he asked what I did, I mentioned that I write novels, and he asked what my new book was about. Without quite realizing the potentially awkward nature of my revelation, I told him that my new book was about bank robbers. He looked up from his computer monitor. "Oh, really?"
There was for the rest of our encounter an undeniable air of tension in the room. Every time I had to reach into my pocket for a drivers license or credit card (or, worse, when I bent over to reach into my shoulder bag to pull out some other paperwork), I felt that I was being watched very carefully.
Lesson learned: Just like those airport signs warn us not to joke about bombs or guns while in the security line, it is similarly unwise to discuss bank robberies, even fictional bank robberies, with a bank employee while inside of a bank.
And in other news, here's the latest good press about The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers: a great review in Atlanta Magazine written by Teresa Weaver, who calls the book "magical and inventive" and says that it "gracefully interweaves themes of justice, mortality, and fame among quieter issues such as what makes up a family." You can read the review, and a short interview with me, here.
link to this | File:
I had just moved to the Atlanta area and had finally gotten around to setting up a local bank account. I was sitting in the office of one of the bank managers, and in setting up the account I mentioned that I couldn't do direct-deposit paychecks, as I'm not paid in regular cycles like a typical employee. So he asked what I did, I mentioned that I write novels, and he asked what my new book was about. Without quite realizing the potentially awkward nature of my revelation, I told him that my new book was about bank robbers. He looked up from his computer monitor. "Oh, really?"
There was for the rest of our encounter an undeniable air of tension in the room. Every time I had to reach into my pocket for a drivers license or credit card (or, worse, when I bent over to reach into my shoulder bag to pull out some other paperwork), I felt that I was being watched very carefully.
Lesson learned: Just like those airport signs warn us not to joke about bombs or guns while in the security line, it is similarly unwise to discuss bank robberies, even fictional bank robberies, with a bank employee while inside of a bank.
And in other news, here's the latest good press about The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers: a great review in Atlanta Magazine written by Teresa Weaver, who calls the book "magical and inventive" and says that it "gracefully interweaves themes of justice, mortality, and fame among quieter issues such as what makes up a family." You can read the review, and a short interview with me, here.
link to this | File: