"Meeting David Pereda"

by Moss Bliss, Administrative Editor
Eternal Press

I went to see/hear David Pereda today, doing a reading and presentation from his new EP book, Havana: Top Secret.  The restaurant, a moderately-high-scale place I'd never been in, was packed, and apparently with people there for the reading (I noted that the restaurant almost emptied out after the presentation).  I'm sure I wasn't what David was expecting, but neither was he what I was expecting.

David is a slight, almost-elderly (well, I guess he has about 15 years on me) Cuban gentleman, and I mean that in every sense of the word that I was privy to discover. I walked in with a printout of his book cover and title page, told him I was Admin Editor at EP, and asked him to sign my printout.  He barely even hesitated.  There was a classical/flamenco guitarist for the event, playing in the background.  As he got his presentation going, he announced that he had asked a pair of salsa dancers to come set the stage for the reading, get us in a Cuban frame of mind, but that the male had not been able to make it -- so he substituted himself.  The music for this was provided by a boom box.

He then won the audience over with his gentle humility -- and then by the story itself.  He apologized that his regular reader wasn't there to do the reading, and then apologized that he couldn't find his glasses, and the apologized for the reading itself... but the only person who needed those apologies was himself, the audience was hanging on the story and the reading and the man himself.

If this is the kind of author EP is attracting, I'm all for it.  I can't wait for his next two books.