It’s been a minute since I last went to the East Hampton Library’s Authors Night. The last time I went, the party tent was pitched in the meadow on Maidstone Lane behind the Gardiner windmill and Hilary Knight inscribed his signature with a Sharpie on a huge, glossy hardcover compilation of the “Eloise” books for my kids, who must have still been very young. Was it as long ago as 2012? Mr. Knight smiled enigmatically and I pinched myself in disbelief that he was there in the flesh. Hilary Knight! I was rawther starstruck. The man created “Eloise”! Charge it please thank you very much!
The language of “Eloise” still very much informs how I talk — and write — as an adult.
“Oh my lord, there is so much to do.”
“An egg cup makes a very good hat.”
“And here’s the thing of it. Most of the time I’m on the telephone.”
“Sometimes I comb my hair with a fork.”
Thanks to my friend Anne, who had given me two tickets to this year’s do, I went again on Saturday. The tent is much larger now, the party is in Herrick Park, and the guest list has at least tripled in size.
My pal Sarah and I went for a long swim in the bay at Camp St. Regis at 3 and then strolled with hair still wet, messy as Eloise, over to the park for 5:30 p.m., up the sidewalk from my house in our Indian cotton caftans and hippie sandals. We got our wristbands and a paper hand-fan, the kind they flap in the heat at Baptist church revivals, and joined the throng slowly circulating under the big top.
How the tent rental company even warehouses such a huge marquee, I cannot imagine. They must have a storage hangar at the airport. Half the town was in the tent on Saturday evening, buying books and sweating. The partygoers circled in a slow perambulation, turning and greeting one another. It reminded me of the famous “Ascot Gavotte” scene in “My Fair Lady”:
Ev’ryone who should be here is here.
What a smashing, positively dashing
Spectacle: the library op’ning day.
Alec Baldwin went past, looking tanned, healthy, and relieved.
Authors Night is arranged alphabetically, with the A, B, and C authors seated near the Ds and Es, and the M, N, O, P crowd on the far side with the Vs and Z.
John Avlon, the Democratic Party candidate for congress in C.D.-1 and author of “Lincoln and the Fight for Peace,” had a corner seat which allowed him to pull up a chair next to Robert Caro, leaning in to discuss something tête-é-tête.
Near Robert Caro was Tony Caramanico with his “Montauk Surf Journals.”
We found David, our town justice, over by the shrimp cocktail station, talking to Paul, the bookbinder, who had created a bespoke book box for Robert Caro, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the publication of “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.”
Teri, an E.M.T. I used to volunteer with in the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, was serving behind the shrimp cocktail station, waving energetically at acquaintances among the passers-by doing the circle dance.
Dennis from the library was everywhere, dashing past, stopping to wipe his brow at the bar.
Sheila, a librarian and another former fellow E.M.T., sat at a table by the entrance, gesticulating and discussing something with the other library Sheila, a board member.
Maira Kalman, the silver-haired illustrator who paints the real world — slyly, sadly, keenly — in a magic garden of colors, drew a long line of fans.
Nearby were Dave Karger, the Turner Classic Movies personality, and Susan Kaufman, the photographer who does the “Walk With Me” books.
We found Heidi swimming past in the throng near Diana Nyad’s table.
Heidi showed us the doodle Maira Kalman had kindly drawn above her inscription on the title page of her new book, “Women Holding Things.”
Rue Matthiessen was there with her memoir, “Castles and Ruins,” sitting next to Adam Nagourney with his book about The Times.
We stopped to chat with Lois from the Ladies Village Improvement Society Landmarks Committee. (Definitely not to gossip. No one in the L.V.I.S. ever gossips.)
Mark, my orthopedic surgeon neighbor here on Edwards Lane, carried an armload of books; his wife, Sarah, had brought her sister from California.
Durell was there taking photographs of the stars for The Star, with one orange slipper and one blue slipper, to match her chic orange and blue outfit.
I asked Robert Caro to sign a paperback copy of “The Powerbroker.” He asked my name, and I said, “Bess. As in Bess Truman,” and then felt a bit foolish.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist, had drawn the longest line of fans, even longer than Robert Caro’s. The fact that Neil deGrasse Tyson is a television star, rather than strictly an author, probably explains his crowd magnetism, in our age of non-reading.
I have to admit I rawther suspect most of the books being bought on Saturday evening were intended for coffee table appearances, rather than actual reading, but it’s nice that a crowd of Hamptoners, me included, can still get starstruck in the presence of writers.