A Meeting With Bill

I found this obscure reminiscence of a meeting with Bill Diehl as part of an article titled

Boston Teran - The Author Who Doesn't Exist

I came to this article through two chance meetings separated by seven years but centering around one award winning novel - GOD IS A BULLET. The first meeting was with the best-selling author William Diehl. I was in the Atlanta airport and my flight out was delayed by two hours. Waiting on the same incoming flight was William Diehl. He was sitting next to me and as will happen during those long delays you strike up conversations to kill time.

Somewhere amidst all the small talk I learned he was an author and then the name registered. I had a close friend back then who was a huge fan of Diehl's...PRIMAL FEAR, SHARKEY'S MACHINE was one of his all time favorites.

There are authors who are reticent to talk about themselves, their lives, who decry the attention paid. Mr. Diehl, on the other hand, moved freely between his life as an author and the life he lived before he birthed the author. He didn't become an author until he was fifty.

Mr. Diehl was a fluid experience. He discussed his time with the USIA as a photographer, his experience with Martin Luther King Jr., and how two men slashed at his throat with a razor for "certain political and or social views."

I listened with pure interest to rich details, there was such earthly sincerity in him. During that long delay, absorbed in the all too human details of Mr. Diehl's life I wondered, would this knowledge enhance or diminish a book of his I might read. Would my familiarity, even though it was just a few hours of conversation, reshape the world he had committed to paper? Would he be his own best friend or worst enemy? Would it matter?

I wanted to ask him about this, but did not. Some version of myself didn't quite feel comfortable. His deep connection to all parts that were himself made me sense he would be far removed from such literary notions. I did tell him a dear friend was a huge fan, and besides his own books might he know of something new, something unusual, something off the beaten track he should keep a look out for.

"I read a galley recently to be published by Knopf," he said. "An agent sent it to me to review." He then went on to describe GOD IS A BULLET in vivid and passionate detail. He also made one comment that caught my attention. "When I read the book," he said, "I had no idea whether it was written by a man or a woman. Even after finishing it I didn't. When I saw the author's name I still had no idea."

The author's name was Boston Teran.