WASHINGTON — They have come from as far as New York and Durham, N.C., their hopes and their hurts in tow, seeking enlightenment and autographs. The line forms nearly two hours before showtime and stretches from the gates of Washington National Cathedral out onto its lawn.
The arrivals, most of whom are women, paid as much as $22 each to spend their Friday evening with writer Elizabeth Gilbert. “Nice place,” Gilbert said, pausing to admire the soaring neo-Gothic setting.
Beats the bookstore circuit, powerful in a different sort of way from the set of “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” where she has appeared twice — both times to talk about “Eat, Pray, Love,” the title of Gilbert’s not-so-new book, as well as a mantra for publishing success.
When the attendees go home, they will undoubtedly talk about it some more. And they will sow the multiple autographed copies they obtained among their friends, who will talk about it with their friends, who probably already talked about it in their book clubs over wine and olives.
This has been going for three years, ever since Gilbert published her uncanny memoir of crashing in near-suicidal post-divorce depression and insecurity, then recovering through a year of travel, reflection and new friends.
The subtitle is, “One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia.” The subtext is: You can do it, sister.
The paperback has taken up permanent residence on bestseller lists. There are more than 7 million copies in print in more than 30 languages. Columbia Pictures hopes to have the movie out sometime next year.
“When the miraculous, wondrous, impossible thing happens,” Gilbert said, “and you put a book out to the world, and people actually love it, and actually care about it, and actually respond to it, it is so moving and so strange to have that occur that it’s difficult for me to even express what I’m trying to get at.”
If the author is humbled and puzzled, the readers have more of a clue about what this book means to them.
“How do you tell somebody, ‘Thank you for teaching me how to pray?’ ” said Fatima Nawaz, 28, a researcher in infectious diseases, who has come from New York.
“I was going through the same experience she went through,” including a divorce, said Alesia Balshakova, 29, a lawyer who traveled from Durham, N.C. “I was praying for God to show me the way through, and this book showed up in my life.”
They like how honest and raw it is, bravely embracing varieties of the human condition — from wailing on the bathroom floor in a puddle of snot, to gorging on the world’s best double-mozzarella pizza, to catching fleeting glimpses of divinity through meditation, to having great sex on the beach.
Gilbert surveyed her audience. “There are a couple men here, that’s so lovely!” she said. “I hope you knew you were coming.”
Some of the guys are here basically as ornaments for the women. But some, like Rob Otterstatter, 38 — who lives in Stafford, Va., works in law enforcement — came because they really wanted to.
He and his 91-year-old grandmother exchange books, and she passed him “Eat, Pray, Love.” His wife thought that was funny because it was such a “girlie” book, he said, then he got her to read it.
“In some ways it’s a very American book in the pre-19th century tradition in American literature of self-improvement through nonfiction. … It’s kind of where Ben Franklin meets Walt Whitman. That’s not an unappealing kind of bridge to cross,” said Richard McCann, a fiction writer who teaches a course in memoir at American University.
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