At Large in Ballard by Peggy Sturdivant

This is a belated book review of a book that is not really a book. For some months the 39 spiral-bound pages of "the Scottish Buddhist Cookbook" have moved around my house. It's almost as though I needed time between meeting the author and opening his photocopied pages before I could separate the two from each other so as to be able to review the work and not the man. I never did succeed.

Months ago in then newly opened Far Art & Beads on Market Street, Jay Craig gave me have a copy of his self-published book entitled "the Scottish Buddhist Cookbook." (The lower case t is his). The shop is a collaborative that features art created almost exclusively in Ballard; many of the artists have studios inside the hulking Fenpro Building on Market Street. I asked the owners, Anita and Sammy, whether the shop name was meant to suggest body functions. Anita just smiled. I admired the earrings and blown glass, hoodies with animal ears, metal work and beads that a man in a kilt was sorting. The owner said, "he makes the glass bagpipes, and that's his book."

Neatly stacked were copies of "the Scottish Buddhist Cookbook" with $10 printed in the upper right corner. Perhaps because I was taking notes on a scrap of paper they guessed I was writer and decided that I could have a copy of the book gratis, for reviewing purposes. Jay told me that it had cost him almost $8 apiece to print and bind the books. My sister visiting from Massachusetts shopped for beads while I interviewed everyone in the shop - which my sister later pronounced, "embarrassing."

That night my brother-in-law picked up the book, probably because he loves to look at cookbooks. Walter and I have differing political opinions and there's not much crossover in our booklists. "Have your read this?" he asked after a few minutes, as though he'd expected recipes and found pornography.

I'd opened the manuscript to a story about the end of a marriage that began:

"It was late December when I came home wearing a kilt and ceremoniously threw all my pants in the dumpster, declaring, 'I'm never wearing pants again!' By New Year's Eve, my wife of 10 years decided to leave me."

It was a great first paragraph, plus pages with recipes. Granted they were all recipes for cooking in a Crock Pot but the ingredient lists looked legitimate.

From the kitchen I could hear chuckles. "Where did you get this book again?" my brother-in-law called, obviously it wasn't off-color enough for him to stop reading.

A week later another visitor, this one from California, picked up the book from the coffee table and looked it over.

"Have you read this?" Cami called to me.

"Not yet," I confessed.

"He's funny," Cami pronounced. Then a few minutes later, "He's depressed." A chuckle, then, "He's a tortured soul."

I took her to the bead shop later that day and Jay Craig himself was minding the store. I apologized for not having read the book yet. Cami eyed his bare legs below the kilt and while he rang up her bead purchase she studied him as though checking on his soul.

After all of my guests were gone, the Scottish Buddhist Cookbook continued to move around the house. It spent more time by the couch, some days on the kitchen counter since it said cookbook, and then it moved up to the wine crate that doubles as a bedside table. It had reached the head of the queue.

I realized what I had been struggling with all along was the need to separate the writing from the author, even though I expect that separation from readers. The man I met in Far Art & Beads was wearing a kilt, a beard and rather shy smile and was clearly nervous about putting his writings out to the world, even though he'd spent quite a bit of money doing just that. When said book starts with a man throwing away his pants to wear a kilt, it's hard to disconnect the two.

But we have to disconnect any artist from what they create. Once written, sculpted, painted, or etched, the resulting work deserves to have its own life. Some people create purely for themselves; others have a need that drives them to want to share with a larger audience. If the work should be highly personal then they deserve hazard points for being willing to release the work to the world, especially knowing that few will make a distinction between the author and the work. The reader may assume that you are the character. It can take thick skin to read a review and acting skills to convince readers that they character is not you.

"the Scottish Buddhist Cookbook" is a 39-page collection of stories, recipes, copies of related correspondence and a list of the eleven "demandments" of Scottish Buddhism. Even after reading the work, I'm not sure how much of it is meant to be serious. I'm not going address the state of mind that is packaged as Scottish Buddhism or the back story on creating a doll billed as Huggy Jesus. I would like to know if Jay Craig really cooks exclusively in a Crock Pot - and if he has had his cholesterol checked lately. But there I go confusing the character and the author again.

I admire that someone who is not foremost a writer has put his stories onto paper, and carefully copied and bound those stories. Plus those stories made me laugh. I was disappointed when I realized that I'd read the last page. The story, "Hi! I'm Maggie!" is probably worth the cost of the book. If not for the story itself, which is quite good, but as reward for the guts it took Jay Craig to put himself out there, in print, without any pants.

Peggy's email is atlargeinballard@yahoo.com She writes additional pieces for the P.I's Ballard Webtown at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard/