I really envy people who say they don’t care about reviews; don’t even read them, in fact. I can’t even fake being one of those people. Whenever a good review for Montana came in, I danced around the room. The bad ones sent me into a fetal position. Luckily, there were more – lots more – of the former than the latter. Which created a whole new level of paranoia. What if people hated the sequel, Dakota? Well, the first review is in, and I did the happy dance. Kirkus Reviews, bless ’em, said that “the writing is top-notch, and the action builds at just the right pace. In Florio’s capable hands, Lola Wicks is going to be around for a long, long time.”
As my grandmother would have said, “from their mouth to God’s ears.”
In Dakota, Lola Wicks heads east, to the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota. The story that takes her there breaks in the deepest cold of winter. Talk about your polar vortex.
This coming week, Lola heads even farther east, to Philadelphia, my old stomping grounds. I’ll be doing a reading there on Wednesday night, sponsored by the Rittenhouse Writers Group, at the Hooloon Art gallery. I’m excited about seeing family and old friends – and about introducing Lola, with all of her rough edges, to the big city. And of course, there will be a mandatory stop at Tony Luke’s for a roast pork sandwich. Yum!
(Image: foodspotting.com)
So I dropped the work on Dakota and spent two full days poring over Montana, finding 19 mistakes in the process. That sort of things gives you – at least it gives me – nightmares. Because what if I missed something? That’s the equivalent of getting run over by the locomotive. 
Anyone who’s ever seen my desk (at right, on a relatively clean day) knows I never throw anything out.
It just so happens that many years ago I wrote a perfectly dreadful novel set in Wyoming. It didn’t go anywhere, and thank God for that. But I liked parts of it, and now am happily going all Hannibal Lecter on those parts for this new novel. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is proof positive of the wisdom of never throwing anything away.
In North Dakota, we saw trucks, trucks and more trucks, trucks so big that they made a standard semi look downright dainty. We met a waitress who’s lived in her camper for two years and got a $100 tip one day, and dancers who make $1,000 a night. We saw a McDonald’s in a town an hour away that keeps closing down because it can’t get workers. And we saw 
After which, the Hi-Line – sometimes disparaged as miles and miles of empty – felt wonderfully clean and soothing. I know the people who live there have a tough time. Jobs are hard to come by and amenities few and far between. But you can’t help but wonder — if the cost of full employment and skyrocketing development is the chaos evident in the patch, is it worth it?