The Story of the Time I Sat Next To Elizabeth Gilbert’s Sister at Lunch

Recently, I went on a girl’s weekend with one of my sisters. While we were dipping our feet in the water of the warm springs we were visiting we talked about the books that we were reading. My sister told me that she was reading a fiction book by Elizabeth Gilbert, author international autobiographical memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert herself is played by Julia Roberts in the movie of the same name.

I liked listening to her tell me about the book because I am a huge Elizabeth Gilbert fan. I follow her on Instagram and this is a deal big deal for me because I don’t follow very many famous people on Instagram [Side note: of the famous people that I follow, most of them are authors or memoirs, I guess I have a type.]

Then I told her a story that I realized that I never told her before. I told her about the time that I was seated next to the sister of Elizabeth Gilbert, who is also an author, at a luncheon and I was totally awkward. I couldn’t figure out what to say to her.

My sister is a great listener and she laughed at the end of the story. I am not even sure that I deserved her receptive response. I was surprised that I had never told her the story before as we are both Elizabeth Gilbert fans. In fact a few years ago, she and I made a plan that we never followed through on to travel to visit the East Asian Imports store that Elizabeth Gilbert and her second husband played by Javier Bardem in the movie, owned together in Frenchtown, NJ. About five years ago I learned about the the store was only an hour from my house and decided that someday I really must go there. Alas, it is too late now since she and he are no longer together and she is on her second significant other since the demise of this relationship.

My story brush with that sister of Elizabeth Gilbert is this:

In 2014, I attended the Pennsylvania Library Association Conference which was held in Lancaster that year. Around noon, I went to the Carolyn Field Award luncheon which is a ceramony to honor the best children’s work written or illustrated by a Pennsylvania author or illustrator. I got there early before many people arrived and a was noticed by a friendly colleague who invited me to sit at her table. My colleague is more influential within the association than myself and thus I was in the situation of sitting with people “who know people”. Right before the luncheon started, Elizabeth Gilbert’s sister, Catherine Gilbert Murdock, who is an author of young adult literature, got shown to the seat next to me as luck would have it.

I knew who she was because about eight years before out meeting she did a reading at other library near the library that I was working at. I knew she lived near Philadelphia and she was a library patron at the library where the reading occurred. At the time I learned about her book I was a new librarian and one of the other children’s librarians at my library told me about her and she recommended her book, which is called Dairy Queen and is about a female football quarterback. Then every time I put the book on the shelves or past it when I was finding something for a library customer, I thought to myself, I should read that book, but I never did.

I tried to make small talk with her but I kept getting flustered because I knew some information about her but I didn’t want to give myself away. First of all, she looked just like the book jacket photo of Elizabeth Gilbert. I wanted to say, “Wow, you look just like your sister.” I had the sense though to know that saying it would be creepy and also she might get that a lot.

Also in Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert talks about her nephews, who were the sons of this lady who was sitting next to me. I didn’t want to be weird and be like, “Is your son Nick still having trouble sleeping through the night, because I remember reading about that in your sister’s book.” Instead, I tried really hard to make beneign chit-chat but I kept coming up against three problems.

1. I hadn’t read any of her books, which would not be that big of deal except, that I am a youth services librarian and this was a youth services luncheon. Librarians, notoriously, do a lot of gushing when they meet authors because authors write the librarians drug of choice. I don’t know if authors have come to except the gushing, but I feel like it is expected behavior when encountering published authors in the library world. I always feel a little awkward if I meet a published author and I haven’t read any of their books.
2. During this lunch encounter, I knew a lot about Elizabeth Gilbert and I already knew some facts about my tablemate. For instance, I knew that Catherine grew up on a Christmas Tree farm in Upstate New York in a house with no television. I knew that Elizabeth Gilbert was chatty and Catherine, who I was sitting next to, was quieter.
3. I knew she had just finished a panel discussion at the conference about young adult literature. I didn’t go to it, even though that was the youth services division talk during that time slot, so I didn’t have that to gush about either.

I am not a good liar and I don’t play it cool very well sometimes either. I think some people might have been able to sit next to her and pretend that they didn’t know anything that they knew and just have a lovely lunch but that is not who I am. Instead, I tried to make awkward small talk and tried to avoid any topic in which I already knew the answer. This left me with very few things to say. I already thought that I knew where she lived, I knew she had two sons, I knew she wrote young adult books so I didn’t have much left to ask her. I also didn’t want to give myself away as a non-reader of her books so I was reluctant to share what I did for a living which was work as a youth services librarian.

Eventually, the luncheon ended and we went our separate ways. What could have been a cool encounter ended up as an incident that I don’t usually mention. It’s kind of funny now though when I think about it.

As a funny side note, when I was researching this blog post I found out that Catherine Gilbert Murdock won a 2019 Newbery Honor Award, which is the silver medal that is on the front of children’s books. It is like being nominated for an Academy Award for children’s book writing. Charlotte’s Web is a Newbery Honor book. Most children’s writers never win a Newbery Honor. Now I can say that I sat next to a Newbery Honor winner at a luncheon and had awkward small-talk.

What awkward things have you been up to?