Welcome to GabFest Reeds. For the month of December, I'm John Dickerson. It's good to be back

after a bit of a hiatus. I'm here to talk to Christine Colson, the author of One Woman's 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 Reeds.

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 what's so wonderful about it.

And so maybe we will show listeners some of the complexities in 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.

So I want to jump right into the origin story. But stories are better than exposition. So I want to jump right into the origin story.

Where and when were you and what were you doing when you decided, ah, I would like my next book to be in this form? Yeah. Well, it's actually kind of interesting because I can pinpoint exactly where I was

standing, what was happening, who I was with when I had the idea, and that's kind of rare for

a novelist. I was at the Met, and really the last project I did there was to write the wall labels for the new British

...