“EL PROMO”
OR:
HOW TO
SELL YOUR BOOK IN LATIN AMERICA AND HAVE A BLONDE IN A BLACK BIKINI
PIN YOU TO
A PSYCHIATRIST’S COUCH
ON
NATIONAL TELEVISION
Everything
you’ve ever heard about Mexico City is true. The city contains roughly the same
population as the whole of Australia and twice as many cars as people. They say
that one day walking in the streets of El DF is equivalent to smoking a pack of
forty cigarettes.
I was there for a week a few years back to promote a book I had written about
the conquest of Mexico. I had not read the book myself on anything except my
laptop and the Australian edition was still in editing. So it was slightly surreal
to fly halfway across the world and discover it has been a bestseller in
another country for weeks.
The central figure of my story was a Mayan princess called Malinali (better known in the west as Malinche), Hernan Cortes’ lover during his 'entrada' in the early sixteenth century. My book speculated about her life, her motives, her role in the defeat of the Aztecs and most especially, the precise nature of her relationship with the great conquistador.
Well. You wouldn’t think the Mexicans would care any more, would you? The woman
has been dead for half a millennium and her name is almost unknown outside of
Mexico.
But they
do care; they care a lot. It was why almost every newspaper and magazine in the
city wanted to talk to me.
They care
so much, in fact, that at times I was being interviewed by three journalists at
a time because there was not enough time to schedule everyone. Not all of the
journalists liked the book; halfway through one interview a journalist threw
his manbag at me and said he was offended by my interpretation of Malinche, a
woman he and many Mexicans regard as a traitor of the first rank. She is
responsible for selling out Mexico and consigning her nation to catastrophe and
slavery, he said. Well, perhaps. But there's two sides to every story.
Finally he
stormed out of the office.
I didn’t read the review but I got the impression that I wouldn’t be able to
use any quotes on the cover of the reprint.
My interpreter for the duration of my stay was a very attractive young woman by
the name of Beatriz, publicity director for the large publishing house that had
bought Spanish rights to my book. When I was invited onto a popular daytime
television show she found out half an hour before my appearance that she would
be required to accompany me in front of the TV cameras as my interpreter.
She had never been on television before
and was very nervous, especially as the show’s host was the notorious Victor
Trujillo, Mexico TV's shock jock. Her husband was away on business in
Guadalajara and she was afraid that he might see the program; she was also
nervous that her mother, a very strict Catholic who disapproved of our host,
might also hear about it.
Victor's particular schtick was to
have his guests lie down on a psychiatrist’s couch while he sat behind them and
asked them personal questions, like a therapist. Sometimes he would have a
blonde in a red leather bikini stride onto the set and sit on his guest's lap
to distract them - so really, it was more like a kinky interrogation session
than a sombre literary interview.
Fortunately Beatrix had warned me about this.
So when
the blonde came on set, I was prepared. I asked, through Beatriz, if the young
woman would come back to my hotel with me. I had Victor on the back foot.
Disappointed
at not catching me off guard, he raised the stakes. He brought on his second
surprise – a male model with a six pack (make that twelve) in a bulging
g-string who came and sat on Beatriz’s lap. I
don't know who was more surprised; my blushing interpreter or her husband,
watching from his hotel room in Guadalajara.
On the way back to the car afterwards Beatriz was busy
fielding phone calls from her mother and her other half. After she hung up the
phone she told me she would not be acting for any more Australian authors. I
protested that it really wasn't my fault but she told me I was a no-good gringo
and I could get my own lunch. So there.
Wow, this was really working out well.
The next morning I woke at six o’clock to the sound of bugle and drum, as the
Mexican flag was raised in the Plaza Major. It is a big flag, a monster that
takes a dozen soldiers standing at arm’s length to furl and unfurl.
I spent the morning with more journalists (no man bags thank God) and then
Beatrix took me to an early lunch and invited me to sample one of the local
delicacies, chilli chicken in chocolate sauce. It tastes exactly like it
sounds, like chicken covered in spicy chocolate sauce.
She then drove me back to the television studios for an interview that was to
be syndicated throughout Latin America, South America and the US. I was happy
enough with this but did not discover until a minute or so before we went on
air that it would last for the better part of an hour. I also discovered, to my
chagrin, that my interviewer, who could speak perfect English, would instead
ask me the questions in Spanish, and these would be relayed to me through my
earphones by an interpreter – at about a split second delay.
Now if you’ve never had this experience you may not appreciate how
disconcerting this is. You have no idea what to do with your eyes for one
thing; if you look at your interviewer’s face, the lip movements are out of
synch with what you’re hearing and you end up staring at your interlocutor like
an imbecile and going “Huh?”
Or if you look away and just concentrate on what you’re hearing through your
earphones you look like someone who’s lived with their bedridden mother all
their life and has lost any ability for social interaction.
To compound my panic the chocolate chicken I had eaten for lunch had come back
to haunt me. Montezuma had decided to take his revenge on the latest author to
slur his name and not only could I not look my interviewer in the face – I also
began to sweat, wriggle and cross and uncross my legs every few seconds.
I survived the interview with seconds to spare. Was it Beatrix's revenge? I
suspect so.
All in all, my author tour of Mexico was a chastening experience. Oh, and I got
mugged. But hell, it's Mexico. Doesn't everyone?
Would I go back and do it all again? If I could get another book on their
bestseller; lists, you bet. I'm a writer - it's okay to be shameless.
But next time I'd pass on the chili chocolate chicken.
Born in north London, Colin worked for many years in
TV and radio and freelanced for many of Australia’s leading newspapers and
magazines. He has been a novelist for the last twenty years, with his work
published widely in the UK, US and Europe. His books have been sold in
translation in Brazil, Belgium, the Czech republic, France, Germany, Greece,
Hungary, Italy, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia,
Spain and Turkey.
He
travels regularly to research his novels and his quest for authenticity led him
to run with the bulls in Pamplona, pursue tornadoes across Oklahoma and black
witches across Mexico, go cage shark diving in South Africa and get tear gassed
in a riot in La Paz. He also completed a nine hundred kilometre walk of the
camino in Spain.
He lived for many years near Margaret River in WA, helped raise two beautiful daughters with his late wife, Helen. While writing, he also worked for many years in the volunteer ambulance service. “I’d be at my desk typing, then thirty minutes later I’d be crawling into an overturned car.”
Colin blogs at Looking for Mr. Goodstory, and is on twitter at @colin_falconer.
