Some reviews trickled out. Not the thundering tidal wave of wonder-struck praise that Todd had hoped for, but they were by and large favorable. Unfortunately they were in low-mass circulation periodicals like Books Now, The Penman’s Review and—Todd’s personal favorite—The New American Librarian, a bi-annual magazine devoted to covering only books that were being sent out to libraries (Todd joked to Sara that they should call the thing Don’t Bother Buying These Books, We Got ’Em For You Free). But he was grateful for the coverage.

Sara clipped all the reviews out and pasted them in a scrapbook.

“You should have bought a smaller scrapbook,” said Todd, when he saw them all together, bravely trying to fill an entire page.

“This is just the advance guard,” said Sara. “Soon this thing’s going to be bulging. Give it time.”

*  *  *

Todd’s local paper—the Beacon (known to one and all as the Beaconfused)—ran a page on Todd. They sent a photographer and everything. The piece looked nice.

LOCAL MAN WRITES NOVEL

“I guess I’m just lucky,” says Todd Milstead. Milstead, who lives out on Hinckley Road, never dreamed of seeing his name in print, let alone on the front of a book. But after “a lot of perseverance,” Todd’s first book All My Colors is out now.

“You know that saying about how it takes ninety percent perspiration and ten percent inspiration to write a novel?” jokes Todd, “Well, in my case, it was more like ninety percent perspiration. I’m not kidding, I sat in this room and I almost literally sweated this book out.”

Milstead, who teaches part-time in the area, says he wants nothing from the book but “the satisfaction of a job well done and maybe the chance to see a few copies in the local bookstore under a sign saying ‘local author.’” That said, he is hitting the road for the next few months to promote All My Colors “at the insistence of my publisher. I’m really a homebody,” says Todd, breaking into the kind of boyish grin that’s sure to win him a few new female fans.

“I thought you said a guy wrote this,” said Sara.

“Did I?” said Todd. “No, the photographer was a guy. The journalist was a woman. I think.”

“Right,” said Sara. “You think. You’re not fooling anyone. I bet you forgot she was eighteen and blonde, too.”

“I really can’t remember,” said Todd who, immediately after the wide-eyed young woman had gazed into his eyes for the duration of the whole interview and made him feel like the smartest stud in the world, had gone into the bathroom and jerked off.

“Timothy’s not going to be pleased,” said Sara.

“Timothy’s never pleased,” Todd said. “But why exactly this time?”

“Look at the part at the end,” said Sara. Todd skimmed down to the bottom of the page.

“Uh oh,” he said.