Matt Love is IN Love!

One of our favorite local-ish authors just dropped by the store to bring us some of his books, including his newest book: Love & the Green Lady: Meditations on the Yaquina Bay Bridge: Oregon's Crown Jewel of Socialism (Part Two of the Newport Trilogy). Yes, I'm talking about Mr. Matt Love -- author, editor, historian, and passionate, passionate teacher.

Conde McCullough headed the Oregon State Highway Department's bridge design and construction program for eighteen years. The Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport, which opened on Labor Day in 1936, was his brainchild. Matt Love is in love. With this bridge. “One sunny afternoon, I looked at the bridge’s soaring sinuous green lines and saw a woman. Call it personification or call it a writer’s pretentiousness, or call Dr. Freud, but the Yaquina Bay Bridge suddenly appeared to me as a very attractive woman. Right then, I dubbed her the Green Lady and I was in love."

The new book blends an eclectic variety of literary genres, including memoir, essay, vignette, autobiography, letter, homework, meditation, ode, commentary, oral history, polemic, curriculum, and confession. It also offers more than 100 photographs of the bridge taken by Matt and some of his students. On the cover of the book is Daisy, who has a tattoo of "the Green Lady."

The book is published by the Nestucca Spit Press, which Matt founded in 2003. We've got signed copies of Love & the Green Lady here, as well as signed copies of some of Matt's other books. He'll be back in the fall to do a reading at the store -- the video from his reading last year here with Willy Vlautin is one of the most frequently watched videos on our website. Keep an eye on our calendar of events to find out when he'll be here. In the interim, come get your own copy of Love & the Green Lady.