Like the Tayari Jones reading, what was most fascinating about David Gessner was not his writing but himself. From the very first moment he got on, when he showed us the "trailer" to his newest book, I instantly knew that here was a man who was infinitely more interesting than anything he could put on a page.
Gessner has a talent for story telling. His talks to the audience like they are old friends. Each word flows from one to the next like current in a river. When he is describing the river he paddled on or the bar he attended, I could picture them perfectly in my mind. When he described the picnic he took with his friend, holding his hand up to chest level and saying, "The grass was yeh-high," I felt as if I was there with him, wondering on the dangers of hidden ticks. His language is simple and void of ornament, accentuating his earnestness and the down-to-earth feel of his stories.
The thing that struck me the most was his story about going down to the Gulf of Mexico. He talked about how it was like its own country, with BP employees in hazmats everywhere cleaning up the oil spill. I am working on it. Me. On the project to clean up the Gulf. The research lab I'm a part of is analyzing the damage done on the corals in the Gulf as a result of the oil spill. I was tempted to raise my hand and tell him, but ultimately refrained.
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