The McCammon Hoarding Incident

Favorite novel of all time: Swan Song. Robert McCammon.
I love it so much.

In the 1990s, I loaned out my only copy to someone and never got it back.
So I bought another copy. A few months later—same thing. Gone.
So I bought another copy.

This time, the person loved it as much as I did and asked if he could keep it.
Of course he could keep it!

From then on, every time I went to a used bookstore (often), I’d check to see if they had Swan Song. If they did, I’d buy it—you know, just in case I needed to loan it out again.

Except I never did.

After the first three, no one else showed interest. But I kept buying them—you know, just in case.

Occasionally, I’d go to Waldenbooks and buy a brand new copy that was all shiny and pretty. Just because I wanted a new one to put next to the new one on the shelf. And also, you know, just in case.

Then a couple of my friends discovered I had . . . quite a few copies, and they thought it was funny—ha ha, she’s bizarrely obsessed—so they started buying them for me as a joke. Birthday, Christmas, no-reason . . .

It wasn’t a joke to me. I loved every one of my little treasures.

I don’t know what happened to them all. Sadly, I only have one left. My long-standing crush on Robert McCammon hasn’t waned a bit, though. The poor man has no idea the level of crazy.

🖤 Originally posted in a writer’s group chat on August 11, 2021.