I’ll be at Waldenbooks, downtown Charleston tomorrow (Saturday May 3rd) signing copies of Undead on Arrival.

This is my first time at a Waldenbooks store, so I’d appreciate your support. Come and say hello if you can.

The signing will take place at 120 Market St. on May 3rd from 1 – 3 p..m.

For further information please call the store on (843) 853-1736 or visit the Nick Smith Books website.

I’ll be signing copies of my latest novel Undead on Arrival at Books-a-Million West Ashley today (March 15th) from noon to 3 p.m.

Books-a-Million doesn’t publicize its events, unless the author’s megafamous. I even had to make my own poster for them. So I’d appreciate any support you can give. Nip in and say hello on your way to the mall.

Books-a-Million is at 832 Orleans Rd., just off Sam Rittenberg Blvd in Charleston, SC. For further information, call the manager’s spendthrift ass on (843) 556-9232.

The author and a zombie friend at an Undead on Arrival signing.

MR. SEBASTIAN AND THE NEGR0 MAGICIAN. By Daniel Wallace. Published by Doubleday. 260 pages. $21.95.

Mr. Sebastian has a similar style to Daniel Wallace’s earlier books, Big Fish, The Watermelon King and Ray in Reverse, but it’s less satisfying. It lacks the element that kept those previous yarns from unraveling; the sense that there’s a whole universe of fanciful stories out there just hinted at by the NC author.

That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty of fancy in this book. There are plenty of stories, too, as the life of Henry Wells (the Negro Magician) is documented or mythologized by a vivid parade of characters.

Wells has fallen on hard times and he’s lost his magic touch. Where once he was able to conjure gold dust and doves from thin, he now has trouble with the simplest card tricks. As we learn through the split narratives, Wells has lived a doomed life, crushed by the Great Depression, soldiering through World War II and living by his wits as a street scoundrel in the intervening years.

Mr. Sebastian has mesmerizing moments but it ultimately seems slim – as if something has vanished from the text. In his urge to write what he describes as his first fully-formed novel, Wallace has dumped his usual, loose anything’s-possible writing voice. This novel would be adequate if the rest of the writer’s oeuvre wasn’t such a hard act to follow.

Thanks to everyone who came!

- Nick

Above & below: My son, Sam, keeps me company during today's

book signing at Barnes & Noble.

Here's a blog post from Charleston City Paper's Arts & Entertainment editor, John Stoehr back in December '07 (sounds like a long time ago, doesn't it?):

"Be sure to check out Nick Smith’s review of an old-school screen printing show at 52.5. The exhibit, set among racks of CDs and punk ‘zines, runs through Dec. 31. And while you’re at it, Mr. Nick has a new novel out called Undead on Arrival.

"The official launch party was earlier this month at The Black Cart. He’ll do a book signing and reading on Jan. 12 at 2 p.m. Barnes & Noble, 1812 Sam Rittenberg Blvd. Smith, evidently a lover of Felis silvestris catus, is also the author Milk Treading and The Kitty Killer Cult. For more information, call the bookstore at (843) 556-8979 or go to http://arts.ccpblogs.com/2007/12/19/journal-screen-printing-101-and-mr-nick/www.bn.com."

Book Reviews

When I'm not writing for the City Paper, I moonlight as an Arts & Travel reviewer for the Post & Courier, Charleston's stuffy local broadsheet.

The P&C features department is an open plan hive of journalistic activity, full of gruff reporters and meetings in brown-decored rooms. News - or at least what the P&C considers news - takes precedence over the arty stuff. So over the past few years the review section's shrunk, and in general I've seen more Associated Press stuff in the paper.

This week you can read two home-grown, short but sweet book reviews on the P&C site. One is for Woody Allen's new book Mere Anarchy, which is funnier than his last seven movies put together - not too hard, I know.

The other takes a look at Americanism by David Gelernter, a strange little book that considers our patriotic belief in the ideal of America as a kind of religion. Hey, I don't write these things, I just review 'em.