Novelist Patry Francis, a Brockton native who was diagnosed last fall with an aggressive form of cancer, is unable to promote the release last week of her first novel's trade paperback edition - so hundreds of her fellow fiction writers are spreading the word for her.
Near 400 writers - generally an independent and solitary lot - have participated so far, writing on their blogs about Francis and "The Liar's Diary." They include writers with large readerships and heavy traffic on their blogs, such as Khaled Hosseini (author of "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns"), Peter Coyote ("Sleeping Where I Fall"), Neil Gaiman ("Neverwhere" and "The Sandman" graphic novel series), and Jennifer Weiner ("In Her Shoes").
Hosseini wrote: "I cannot imagine what I would have felt" if he had been unable to promote his first work "after all the hard work writing the novel, editing it, meeting my publisher and publicists, and all the planning that goes into launching a novel."
It seems to be working. According to
Francis, after 25 years of working as a waitress to support her family, saw her first novel published in hardcover last year. The crossover mystery sold well and drew good notices. But her ability to take part in promotions for the release of the paperback version was curtailed because she was recovering from surgery.
That was when her colleagues took up her cause.
"One blog may not make a lot of noise, but 385 certainly do," said Alice Tasman, Francis's agent and a good friend. "This is a feel-good story. This is all heart."
What galvanized other writers to promote the book on her behalf are the essays she wrote in her blog about coming to terms with her cancer diagnosis. "It's the grace and the strength and the sense of humor" in these writings, Tasman said.
Over the past six years, Francis has pioneered the use of a blog to forge connections with other writers and potential readers, Tasman said.
The writers such as Susan Henderson (litpark.com), who began the movement to promote the release of her book, have been "blogging buddies" for years, Tasman said, "reading each other. The blogging community is pretty tight." The writers were responding in part to essays about coping with a serious illness Francis has written on her blog (patryfrancis.com), starting last fall.
After receiving the bad news of a cancer diagnosis, Francis wrote, "I went home, drank too much wine, cried, yelled at the wonderful husband who was as anxious as I was, and avoided calls from friends and family members."
But the next day, she said, "I woke up in a different frame of mind. It was a bright November morning; I had work I love to do; and after only 12 hours, I was already tired of my own despair and fear."
When she began writing seriously, Francis said last week she did not know any other writers. But connections made through the blog are real connections. "People really know you," she said.
Francis said she is doing well and has a very good prognosis for recovery, with one more surgery to go. Talking about her illness by writing about it in her blog was a big step in dealing with it, she said.
"It helps you to accept things. It helps you to find out what you think," said Francis.
And there are, she said, unexpected rewards even to bad news as daunting as cancer.
"One thing I learned was that for every ounce of trouble I was forced to drink, I would counter it with two ounces of bliss," Francis wrote last November. "Not the cheap bliss I attempted to find in a wine bottle, but the real thing. The kind I saw in that thin shell when I held it up to the light. The kind we all have inside us if we choose to draw on it."
Robert Knox can be contacted at rc.knox@gmail.com
