"She is going to be fat when she grows up, just like her mammy." -Tayari Jones

I walked into the Foster auditorium expecting failure. My assumption was reassured by the astounding four people in the 100 person capacity room. I watched as the man in the green shirt set up two collapsible tables in the front of the room while I contemplated how I’d sleep in my hands.

The man in the green shirt began unpacking books and then sat down with a credit card imprint machine. This was looking more and more like a waste of my time. Then the first girl started to do the tapping on the mic “Testing. Testing. Is this thing on” spiel and I tried to think about reasons that this girl should be so damned nervous. There are seven of us in the room, and two of them are sleeping!

Then Tayari walked up to the microphone. I didn’t like her voice at first. She was too whispery and the whole thing felt too erudite to me. Oh ex-cuse me Margareet, I seem to have left my tweed in the motor car (fiddles with mustache).

I don’t remember when I stopped coloring in the boxes of the day’s crossword. I don’t remember when she stopped reading; I didn't snap back to reality until I heard people clap. I was in what my mother likes to call “the zone.” I get there when I watch television and it’s not always a good thing. Sometimes I lose all peripheral vision when I’m in the zone and sometimes I go completely deaf to the outside world; I am completely unresponsive. My roommate hates it, but I can’t help it.

Tayari Jones struck a chord that I really wasn’t expecting. Hell, she got me to buy her book with the money I was saving for groceries. I had to have cereal for dinner when I got back home.

Her dialogue reminded me of home even though her story was set in Atlanta and I am from Brooklyn. In my mind, I could see the girls tapping on their braids and sucking their teeth like how I used to imitate one of my friends. I could smell the oil in their hair and hear them "mm-hmm" and stomp their feet as they laughed at something that was said.

Her book makes want to be back home. And I cant wait to read it.