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At dinner last night at the Luxembourg Gardens with Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything Is Illuminated), Nicole Krauss (The History of Love) and Joseph O'Neill (Netherland, which is the book Obama is reading), I realized something that should have been obvious.

When you're intent on something-when you look at it too closely or too often-every now and then you can't quite place it. It's like this with words. Stare too long at something as common as Hello: it can verge on the sense of trying to remember where you met.

And so. What I miss, too often, is how lucky I am to be a working novelist in America. These are, as the whole world knows, tough days for literary fiction. And it's never been the easiest career, even in boom times. Rejection. Financial uncertainty. Mean or dense critics. Good publishers that nevertheless have, at the end of each quarter, to answer to corporate bosses. Plus, the difficulty of composition. Blah blah blah. Everyone knows about this job, about the privations and snags of it.

But it's wonderful, too.

I like being in the company of other writers. I've found little (spoken) jealousy or pettiness. I think we all know what a hard field it is, and so are pretty kind to each other. And, of course, most good novelists are good talkers. Their minds make hairpin turns. (I admit that sometimes last night I fell off the edge of a conversation.)

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Since this blog is turning into a Paris primer, I'll tell you some cool things that Paris has added since the last time I was here -- and that we don't have in the States.

1) Paris's City Hall runs what it calls the "Vélib'" rental program - anyone has access to thousands of three-speed, unisex bikes at hundreds of stations around the city. You stick your credit card into a slot, pay €1 for a 30 minute ride, and go. (If your trip goes longer, you pay a little more.) Anyone can pick up a bike at any Vélib' station and return it at any other one.

We in America are so turned-off by the government, but this kind of thing is so cool; I can't see any downside. It gets people moving around the city faster, and exercising; it eases traffic; it's cheaper (and more fun) than the subway; and its good for the environment. I wonder if any US cities will start doing this?

2) Paris Plages. (Paris beaches.)

All around the city, man-made sandy beaches are set up, each with a pool, with deckchairs, ice cream stands, with concerts. Because they're a book friendly country, you can also borrow books free of charge, play beach volleyball, etc. The bummer is that it doesn't start until July 20. (This was here the last time I visited, but its on;y been around for about five years, so I thought it was worth mentioning.)

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Last night I read to a nice crowd at Shakespeare and Co. Then a bunch of writers and I (Jonathan Safran Foer, the poets Joshua Beckman and Matthew Roher) had dinner at a bistro near Notre Dame with Sylvia, owner of Shakespeare and Co and the daughter of its founder, a guy who used to hang with all the famous Beats. The night felt very Parisian - public reading, bistro, famous writers -- and was the first time I can say that I felt at all like Hemingway. (Not that I'm claining - are you listening crazy blog people? - not that I'm claiming to be anywhere near as good as Hemingway.... Though I do have a certain macho appeal, especially when my back isn't hurting and if I've avoided dairy, which can make me gassy.)

Anyway, I've been reading Updike a lot since he died, and am reading him now. (Of The Farm.) It's weird to feel the need to defend a guy whose career saw the abundant successes and lotto-size returns that Updike's did. But it's weird, too, what's happened to our bard of suburbia; why is it that so many younger writers don't groove on Updike?

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So, I'm in Paris. Not the most natural place to be when your paperback is coming out in the US of A - but, I had a plan.

Today, Monday, June 29th, I'm reading at the venerable Shakespeare & Co.  - the independent Parisian bookstore that was instrumental in launching the careers of Hemingway and Joyce.  Plus, I'm scheduled to be interviewed on France24 -- a cable TV station that often does interviews in English - for a segment that's going to run six times today, all across Europe.

Or, that was the plan.

Somehow, though, things got screwed up. My French is bad (I mean, like trying-to-talk-to-a-dog bad). So when I answered France24 that, Yes,  I'd love to be in your studios, by some contortion of bad translation it came out as: Hell, no -I'd never do your stupid show, you French idiots.

So. Off to a good start.

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Darin Strauss is our guest blogger during the week of June 29th. If you have any questions for Darin Strauss, add a comment to any of his posts.

Here is more information on More Than It Hurts You:

Josh Goldin’s happy yet unexamined existence is shattered one morning when his wife, Dori, rushes their eight-month- old son to the emergency room in severe distress. Dr. Darlene Stokes, an African-American physician and single mother, suspects Munchausen by proxy, a rarely diagnosed and controversial phenomenon where a mother intentionally harms her baby. As each of them is forced to confront a reality that has become a nightmare, Darlene, Dori, and Josh are pushed to their breaking points.

Darin Strauss’s extraordinary novel is set in a world turned upside down—where doctors try to save babies from their parents, police use the law to tear families apart, and the people you think you know best end up surprising you the most.

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One of the almost always nice things about book touring (along with the free hotel rooms and the chance to see parts of the country you never have before) is meeting people who have read your work -- although it can very rarely join the ranks of the tough things about book tour (flying everyday, being away from your family, the occasional empty event). It reminds you that writing isn't just something you do for yourself in your underwear. It's thrilling to realize that people actually read your stuff, and come out to tell you about what they thought of it. (Which is why it's very rarely tough: sometimes people schlep all the way to the book store to tell you they don't like your work. Who would do this? Would you?)

The most memorable event I've ever done was when I went to speak at the Bunker Family Reunion -- the gathering of people who descended from Chang & Eng Bunker -- the real-life twins who were the basis for my first novel.

The conjoined twins Eng and Chang Bunker fathered 21 children and now have 1,800 descendants - and every July many of them come together in Mt. Airy, NC., where the twins settled after escaping certain death in Siam. This year I've been invited, by way of the tabloids. ("Tell that Darin Strauss to come," one of Eng's great-grandsons said to a newspaper reporter who'd written a profile of me.)

I was in LA for the book expo. It's like a car show for books, but more intimidating - probably thousands of books on display, and the authors' booths out on the huge floor; it's in those well-lit emporia usually reserved for big technology roll-outs. It was great, though: I signed hundreds of books, and there was a line to meet me, which was humbling. I almost didn't make it in: a fight broke out in the parking garage (this was LA), and security guards came, and so by the time I got to the hall, I had to sneak in, using my friend John Hodgman's pass. Now, I'm no John Hodgman. Still, it was a nice event. Then Hodgman was nice enough to take me out to dinner at the Chateau Marmont, where he is famous enough to be staying. (I'm not there yet.) We sat next to one of the Olsen twins, and Nicole Richie walked in as I was getting up to leave. It was very Hollywood. And Hodgman was in fine form. I wonder what any of this had to do with selling books, but what do I know?

I like LA, but it always takes me a while to get acclimated to that low parched brown city. I also saw my friend Gary Oldman (since I'm name dropping), who had optioned my book Chang & Eng. He's so cool about being recognized. It would bother me, I think-all these strangers interrupting your dinner to ask for photos and whatnot-but he handles it with real grace. That's all for now.

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Darin Strauss, More Than It Hurts You, family, drama, doctor, accident, literary, Penguin Books, books

Book writing has become more and more about sales; you need to add a splash of Willie Loman into you character.

Yesterday I spent the whole day emailing people I know; I mean everyone I could think of. All the people who are attending my upcoming high school reunion. All my Facebook friends (which includes a lot of "friends"). All the students I've had in the last few years - I teach creative writing at NYU. So, I sent out well over a thousand emails. Which feels like donkey work. It's the odd dichotomy of being an artist in America: you work, not to sound pompous about it, as seriously and as virtuously as you can, trying to swim in that part of the stream that's pure and fresh. You need to be humble, and have a seriousness of purpose -- and then you have to market yourself, which is the opposite of all that. And the truth is, most people who get into writing are not good at marketing themselves. So you feel a little sick after. But here I go again: I'll be on the Craig Ferguson show on June 17^th, and on This American Life July 11^th, and blogging about my 22-city tour all through late June and July on Newsweek. The Ferguson thing is fantastic - great show, very funny guy, and I'm truly grateful to be on there - but I'm nervous. My book is not a humor book, and so how do I be funny without betraying the book? And, more important, how do I be funny on national TV?

View more information on More Than It Hurts You

Darin Strauss, More Than It Hurts You, family, drama, doctor, accident, literary, Penguin Books, books

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Darin Strauss is our guest blogger during the week of June 16th. If you have any questions for him add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some brief information about More Than It Hurts You:

The acclaimed author of Chang and Eng returns with a literary showstopper- a beautifully realized novel that at its heart is the story of a woman who will risk everything to feel something; a doctor whose diagnosis brings her entire life into question; and a man who suddenly realizes that being a good husband and a good father can no longer comfortably coexist.

Josh Goldin was savoring a Friday afternoon break in the coffee room, harmlessly flirting with coworkers while anticipating the weekend at home where his wife, Dori, waited with their eight-month-old son, Zack. And then Josh's secretary rushed in, using words like intensive care, lost consciousness, blood. . . .

That morning, Dori had walked into the emergency room with her son in severe distress. Enter Dr. Darlene Stokes: an African-American physician and single mother whose life is dedicated both to her own son and navigating the tricky maze of modern-day medicine. But something about Dori stirred the doctor's suspicions. Darlene had heard of the sensational diagnosis of Munchausen by Proxy, where a mother intentionally harms her baby, but had never come upon a case of it before. It was rarely diagnosed and extraordinarily controversial. Could it possibly have happened here?