When Donna Leon gave a talk at my public library
We are very lucky to live within walking distance (very short—like 2 blocks!) of an excellent suburban public library. In addition to its beautiful and expansive reading/studying areas, the library boasts superb services for the local community. We’ve enjoyed (nearly) first-run movies, applauded a promising pianist play my three (everyone’s three?) favorite Beethoven sonatas, and, yes, as the title above already gave away…. We heard Donna Leon give a talk!
About seven years ago, I thought surely there must be a mistake when the library sent an email informing us that we needed to reserve our (free) seats in advance if we wanted to be in the audience as Donna Leon gave a talk. There was promise also of a short Venetian opera performance, but the real draw clearly was Donna Leon.
Wikipedia tells us that
In 2015, Leon left Venice after 30 years, and began to split her time between the homes she owns in Switzerland, one in Zurich and another in the mountains.[4] As of 2016 she resided mainly in the small village of Val Müstair in the mountains of Grisons.[7][8] As of 2017 she was returning to Venice approximately one week each month.[4]
So what was she doing in 2016 besides moving away from Venice and skipping between various Swiss mountain villages? Among other things, it seems, giving a talk at a suburban public library after a cheesy operatic performance. No matter why: We were glad to pounce on two seats to the talk.
We arrived at the library just moments before the event was supposed to begin, and so they ushered us to the only remaining seats in the very last row of the auditorium. Intriguingly, the two seats right in front of us had white pieces of paper with “Reserved” printed on them. We thought that there must be some special invited guest.
And, indeed, a younger man and an older woman with iron gray hair got seated in front of us just as the ceremony was about to commence. The woman turned around—to me, of course—and asked if she could see a program. At this point, our suspicions were confirmed that indeed one of our favorite contemporary mystery writers was actually sitting in front of us, looking pretty much like she does in her book jacket covers.
Among other interesting comments she made during her talk, Donna Leon professed that she finds vexing the German language TV adaptations of her long-running Commissario Guido Brunetti series which not only had German dialogue and sensibilities but also German fashion and—she seemed particularly annoyed at this last bit—German haircuts.*
When she returned the program to me, I resisted the impulse to ask if she could sign it for me, in part because I like to think of myself as dignified—and also because I was afraid that she would say no and then I might have to like her a bit less. I have afterwards wondered what she WOULD have said if I HAD asked.
*We’re assuming she was referring to actor who was cast for the role for the first couple of seasons. The actor in the later seasons looks a bit more Italian-ish (to our untrained eyes, at least).