William Gibson at Politics and Prose

Went to hear William Gibson last night at Politics and Prose. He read one of the “DC chapters” from his new novel Spook Country, fielded questions for a while, then signed books.

The place was packed, but we had gotten there over an hour early so had front row seats (which meant not only a great view, but, more importantly, legroom). The questions were the usual range of the good: what are your views on intellectual property?—the bad: what kind of music do you listen to?—and the just-wrong: what do you read in the bathroom? No, I’m not making that last one up. Anyway. Gibson was patient and good-humored throughout, and adept at turning even the most tentative or banal query into an interesting comment or anecdote.

The most important remark, for me, was his reflecting on the enormous sense of relief he felt after finishing Pattern Recognition. Gibson said he was self-conscious of being one of the very first novelists to attempt to write about September 11, and in addition to the great weight of that responsibility he also felt he had successfully confronted those events in his writing and thereby relieved himself of the obligation of having to do so again in the future. (Please note that’s my paraphrase of what WG said, not a direct quotation.)

Oh. There may be a Neuromancer movie that begins filming early next year.

And yes, the man is tall.