CBS New York Book Club talks with Mary Kay Andrews about "Bright Lights, Big Christmas"
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CBS New York Book Club Readers' Choice kicks off the holiday season.
The CBS New York Book Club with Mary Calvi held its virtual meetup with Mary Kay Andrews, author of the club's Readers' Choice "Bright Lights, Big Christmas." Andrews said her book was about bringing "the happy" to the holiday season. Readers agreed, saying the book was heartwarming, the characters went through changes in their lives, and the story was about the sense of humanity.
"Bright Lights, Big Christmas" debuted in the top 10 of the New York Times Best Sellers list.
Andrews's love of antiquing is known to her fans. In the weeks leading up to the Book Club meetup, Calvi and Andrews visited The Antique Emporium in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Andrews shared that she finds inspiration in old portraits. Calvi and Andrews later had tea at the St. Laurent Social Club.
Andrews joined the Book Club virtual meetup from her home office in Georgia, which Andrews says is decorated with her book jackets and best sellers lists framed on the wall.
"It's to remind myself when it gets hard that I've done it before and I'll do it again," Andrews said.
Andrews has published 30 novels and one cookbook.
Calvi asked Andrews if she ever dreamed when when she was a little girl that she would have such a remarkable career.
"No, I didn't," Andrews answered. "I wanted to be a newspaper reporter because I didn't know that little girls like me could write books. So I kind of limited the scope of my dream, I guess. When I got older and I thought, you know what, I'm going to look outside that."
Andrews wrote her first book when she was a mother to two young children and worked full time as a reporter for an Atlanta newspaper. She says she gave herself time on Wednesday nights to write, with a deadline to finish the book in a year. The book was never published.
"I don't have an MFA in creative writing. I have an unpublished book. It taught me that I could do it. It taught me story structure. It taught me how to write dialogue. It taught me how to submit a book and query an agent." Andrews said. "It also taught me not to embrace failure. It wasn't failure. It was just another step in the way. So when that one didn't sell, I started another one. And that book, 'Every Crooked Nanny,' sold based on five chapters."
Calvi asked Andrews about her inspiration for "Bright Lights, Big Christmas." Andrews said the idea came from a New York Times article she read several years ago about a Vermont family who set up a camper in the West Village and sold trees. Andrews filed the idea away until she decied to write a Christmas book. She traveled to New York City to visit the family. Andrews says she took that germ of an idea and "peopled it with characters mostly from my imagination."
Andrews says she and her husband often travel to the city during the holidays as her wedding anniversary is the weekend after Thanksgiving.
Readers asked Andrews about romance in her novels. She said she wants "warmth and spice" in her books "but not too spicy."
Andrews said she is inspired by the readers she meets. They can look forward to her next book called "Summers at the Saint," to be released in May, 2024.
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"Bright Lights, Big Christmas" by Mary Kay Andrews
From the publisher: When fall rolls around, it's time for Kerry Tolliver to leave her family's Christmas tree farm in the mountains of North Carolina for the wilds of New York City to help her gruff older brother & his dog, Queenie, sell the trees at the family stand on a corner in Greenwich Village. Sharing a tiny vintage camper and experiencing Manhattan for the first time, Kerry's ready to try to carve out a new corner for herself. In the weeks leading into Christmas, Kerry quickly becomes close with the charming neighbors who live near their stand. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, Kerry will need to combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York knowledge to protect the new friends she's come to think of as family. And complicating everything is Patrick, a single dad raising his adorable, dragon-loving son Austin on this quirky block. Kerry and Patrick's chemistry is undeniable, but what chance does this holiday romance really have?
Mary Kay Andrews lives in Georgia
"Bright Lights, Big Christmas" by Mary Kay Andrews (Hardcover) $17
"Bright Lights, Big Christmas" by Mary Kay Andrews (Kindle) $12
Excerpt: "Bright Lights, Big Christmas" by Mary Kay Andrews
Kerry Clare Tolliver couldn't remember a time when the smell of a Fraser fir tree didn't make her smile.
Tollivers had been growing this particular variety of Christmas tree, in this particular patch of farmland in the mountains of western North Carolina, for four generations.
But today, standing in front of the flatbed trailer loaded with hundreds of freshly cut and baled fragrant firs, she wanted to cry.
"Mama, please don't ask me to do this," she whispered.
Her mother wrapped an arm around Kerry's shoulders. "I'm sorry, honey, but there's nobody else. Your daddy is coming home from the hospital tomorrow, and somebody's got to be there to make sure he eats and takes his meds and gets his sorry butt up to do physical therapy. Like it or not, that somebody is me."
"What about his sorry wife? Seems like it shouldn't be his ex-wife who has to play nurse."
Birdie-short for Roberta Tolliver-gave a short laugh. "Come on. You know Brenda is the human equivalent of a potted plastic plant. Cute, but useless. Anyway, I'm not supposed to know, and I'm sure as hell not supposed to tell you, but Murphy says she's flown the coop. Moved out right before Halloween. Honestly, I really don't mind. But that means you've got to step up and take Jock's place. We've already missed out on the first week of the selling season. Either you go toNew York and run the tree stand with Murphy, or it doesn't happen."
Kerry shrugged. "Would that be such a bad thing? I mean, can't we sell the trees to our local retailers, like always?"
"No."
Kerry turned to see Murphy, her older brother, who'd walked up behind them. He was an imposing figure-six-four, with a beefy build, dark bristly beard, and weather-beaten skin. Dressed in a quilted plaid flannel jacket, jeans, and muddy work boots, with a chain saw slung over his shoulder, he looked like something straight off a wrapper of paper towels.
"That late freeze in May wiped out a quarter of the trees. Locals won't pay the premium prices to make up for the loss. Anyway, the New York trip accounts for seventy-five percent of our revenue, and like Mama said, we're already a week behind."
Murphy stowed the chain saw in the toolbox in the back of his pickup truck and slammed the lid for emphasis. Now Kerry was eyeing her father's truck-the rusting 1982 Ford F-150 with the vintage fifteen-foot travel trailer hooked up behind it. Like the pickup, the trailer had seen better days. The teardrop-shaped body with faded two-tone turquoise-and-white paint looked like a discarded canned ham.
Spammy, as the Tollivers called the 1963 Shasta trailer, spent most of the year parked in a barn at the tree farm. But every November, for nearly four decades, on the day after Thanksgiving, the trailer got hitched to the truck and then driven the seven hundred miles to New York City, where the Tollivers set up their Christmas tree stand in the West Village. This year, Jock's heart attack and hospitalization had delayed the trip by a week.
"I can't believe you expect me to live in this hunk of junk," Kerry said, walking around the trailer and peering in through the door, which was draped with spiderwebs.
"Have a little respect," Birdie said, patting the trailer's mud-splattered door. "Spammy is practically a family heirloom."
Kerry pointed at the curtained-off cubicle that contained the dreaded chemical toilet. "There's no way I'm using that gross thing."
"It don't work anyway," Murphy said.
"Then where . . . ?"
"We use the bathroom at the café, or at the deli on the corner," her brother said. "Neighbors let us use their showers."
He grabbed a broom and thrust it at her. "Might want to sweep it out before you hit the road. I think there's a squirrel's nest in the bunk where you'll be sleeping." He looked at his watch. "I'm leaving outta here five minutes from now, which should put me in the city by tomorrow, noon, at the latest. I need to know now right now, whether you're coming. Otherwise, the trip's off. We can't afford to hire help this year."
Birdie's calm gray eyes seemed to bore into Kerry's soul. Birdie had been only seventeen when she had Murphy, twenty-one when she had Kerry. She and Jock had split up when Kerry was seven.
Murphy had stayed on the farm with Jock, and Birdie and Kerry had moved into a small cottage in town. The two were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Kerry knew Birdie would never order her to make this trip. Not in so many words. She'd kill her with that pleading look, slay her with silence. Birdie Tolliver was a ninja master at guilt.
"It's not that I don't want to go. I do. I'm willing to help. But I'm terrified of towing the trailer."
"Don't be such a scaredy-cat," Birdie said. "You used to tow the boat to the lake every summer, growing up. And what about all those years you towed the horse trailer when you were show jumping?"
Kerry sighed. She knew she was beaten. "Okay. I'll do it." Birdie beamed. "It'll be almost like old times. You used to love it when the four of us would live in Spammy in the city. You thought it was like living in a dollhouse." A dreamy look crossed Kerry's mother's face.
"New York at Christmas is magical. Walking down Fifth Avenue to see all the store windows decorated. Getting hot chocolate at the market at Union Square . . ."
"Won't be time for any of that with just the two of us working the tree stand this year," Murphy said bluntly.
He pointed at Kerry, taking in her fashionable slim jeans, lightweight sweater, and suede flats.
"Hope you got warmer clothes than that. We got a space heater in the trailer, but it gets cold...
From Bright Lights, Big Christmas by Mary Kay Andrews. Copyright © 2023 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Publishing Group.
