by Colin Walsh

Over thirty years ago, I came to the Frankfurt Book Fair brimming with enthusiasm born of naivety. That naivety including getting a room in the Kaiserstrasse, which turned out to be rented by the hour and lent a new meaning to the term ‘foreign rights’.

Even then, the size of the Fair was overwhelming, a Disneyland of Literature, little trains like arteries joining the spread-eagled halls together. Hall 5 was our International home, instantly recognizable by its smell. The drains simply couldn’t cope with publishers’ excesses and, mixed with the odours from the central food stands, produced a pong that permeated even the dummies on the stands, both live and inanimate.

As experience of attending the Fair accumulated, life got easier and more enjoyable. The restaurant in the casino at Bad Homburg is sublime (there’s a bus to pick you up) and you can play the roulette tables if you remember to bring your passport. Interesting to watch the faces of the croupiers as one of your guests insists loudly that the tables are rigged, or when one head of a publishing house threw her Tampax on the table in mistake for a role of notes. ...or when one head of a publishing house threw her Tampax on the table in mistake for a role of notes.

Worth escaping for tea, too, at the Palmengarten, within walking distance of the Messe. Tea, cake and live chamber music on one of those crisp sunny afternoons can do wonders for counteracting the depression of a dozen morning rejections. And the Baseler Ecke in the Stuttgarterstrasse serves tremendous hock on the bone with an appealing hock in a bottle to a very diverse section of the Frankfurt community. It was here that I had the only truly literary experience of any book fair when an Irish delegation took over a table, sang antiphonally a selection of rebel songs, and took turns to recite, by heart, selections from Yeats. Yes, we still have an Ad Hoc Club there.

Much nicer, too, to travel by car than get stuck with all the airport hassle, particularly if you fly economy while the boss is upfront. The autumnal tints, the boats on the Rhine, the schlosses and the choice of where to stay in surrounding villages, plus a bootful of duty free to keep on the stand for those contemplative moments, make sense if you have traveling companions. And, when not in the Palmengarten, you can take drop into Heidelberg, or go for a trailed walk through the forest.

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