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Welcome to Gabfest reads for the month of December. I'm John Dickerson. Good to be back after a bit of a hiatus.

I'm here to talk to Christine Coulson, the author of One Woman Show.

This is Christine's latest book.

She's also the author of the best-selling metropolitan stories.

They're both jewels, intricate storytelling, and a delight to read.

Christine, welcome to Gamfest Reed.

Hi.

And before I start, I should note that

Chris and I know we have known each other for a long time,

which I say in the interest of transparency and also explain why sometimes I will

call her Chris though her name is Christine. And the other thing I should mention before we go into

the actual volume is that Chris worked at the Met for 25 years as a writer in

development in the director's office and in the department of European

sculpture and decorative arts which is a very important thing to understand because of the

form and content of this book so let's get right into it Chris the challenge in talking about your book is part of the what's so wonderful about it.

And so maybe we will show listeners some of the complexities and the way we talk about it. So I would be traditionally, I would say,

well, immediately we have to talk about the form of your book. We have to do that before we do the origin story, but stories are better than exposition.

...