Brnes and Noble

MC: "Thank you for joining us. Michael Nesmith is with us today. He's a member of the legendary band The Monkees and a successful Blues Musician. [Michael rolled his eyes sky ward] He can now add novelist to his credentials with the publication of The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora. Please join me in welcoming Michael Nesmith." [Applause and Cheers!]

Michael: How' ya doin "It's nice to see all of you here. Thanks for comin' by.... Well, if you can hear me, 'Hi!'. This is sort of entirely new to me. I'm really looking forward to this. It's a great experience. I had a good time writing this book, The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora."

"I moved to Santa Fe about 4 or 5 years ago. I began to live more of the Life of the Mind, which is very pleasing to me. I've been looking forward to the book coming out, looking forward to coming out and reading some of it to you."

"This book takes place in kind of a timeless moment that is set, according to the book, in the late 1900's, which you can figure out is now. And the protagonist is Nez, which means it's semi-autobiographical, but none of these events actually happened to me. It's more of a Journey of the Soul, a Journey of the Spirit.

"And as I wrote the book and these events began to pop up and I began to write them down, one of the things that I had the most fun with was nosing around and finding $25.00 words to describe a particular event or a specific idea. One of the words that I discovered, when I was reading something by Lawrence Durrell, who wrote The Alexandria Quartet, was a word which is mansuetude,. 'm-a-n-s-u-e-t-u-d-e'. And mansuetude means the essence, it is the descriptive factor of gentility. So I was not exactly sure how I would use it in the book, but I parked it somewhere in my own personal lexicon and thought, when I get to the part, I’ll know it.

"In this particular section of the book, Nez, who has wandered into the southwestern landscape, has come across an extraordinary woman who's name is Neffie. And she is either the Mythical Figure that he's been searching for or she's some incredible scam. He's not exactly sure which. But one thing he knows is that he's starting to find himself falling in love with her. She lives somewhere back in the hills and mesas of the southwest. And Nez had gone, in the event of the story, to a place where she is going to come past. And when she roars past him on her Harley Davidson, he decides to give chase. Where he goes is up into a canyon that is extraordinarily dangerous." "I'll read a passage to you as he follows Neffie on her journey and tries to get her attention and encounters something terrible."

Michael starts reading from The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora, Chapter 4. He begins, on page 58, with: "Again I saw a flash of moonlight and Neffie far ahead, a small figure on the plains. He finishes reading, on page 62, with: "She had heard me and returned to me and saved me; embraced me, in her might as much as her mansuetude."

He read for 8 min. 15 sec.; then, Michael walked off to start the book-signing.