Rachael’s book should look like Rachael

My friend Rachael is about to get superfamous, and I’m just telling you, it starts with the way she pronounces “memoir.” She says the “r.” Rachael is not one to say “memwah” or to feed you any other type of fluff.

The University of Minnesota Press is publishing her book, We’ll Be The Last Ones to Let You Down, in 2013. It’s about growing up as a gravedigger’s daughter in Waseca, Minnesota. One of the things Rachael did as a kid was take the flowers her family cleaned off of grave sites and use them to play bride. The one rule about cleaning up grave decorations, the book says, was that you didn’t take them off the baby graves. Everything else was fair game. No way that girl’s going to grow up and say “memwah.”

The U of M asked Rachael for a bunch of information to promote the book, like what makes it distinctive and who she can get to blurb it and whether she has any thoughts on what the cover should look like. Obviously happy to help with that part.

The cover should have no fluff, no whining, no winking. No you-go-girl feet in grownup high heels on a Waseca kitchen floor from yesteryear. No pedicured feet kicked up against a gravestone. Really no feet at all. This isn’t about how hard it is to be raised in a cemetery and then finally reach the point of being able to get a pedicure without crying, or whatever. This isn’t that. This is a book by a woman who wears just mascara and two piercings, nose and labret, nothing else on her Ivory soap face.

Because eyeshadow rubs off during the workday and foundation is for fakers.

I’m just getting started here, U of M Press. We all are. The whole Blueroad School is excited for Rachael and can’t wait for the launch party in a cemetery. As depicted above. Right?! Just getting started. You are so welcome.