So this friend and I-who were always getting together to moan about how women didn’t appreciate good guys-decided to have a Christmas party. “The end result was that I had one student,” he says.

I like martial arts as an art form, period. As you might expect, when you’re teaching something like martial arts it’s very difficult to find people who are in it for the same reasons you are. I was very excited about martial arts and was teaching it where I lived in New Haven, but it wasn’t turning out the way I wanted. “ ‘Iron & Silk’ happened kind of by accident,” Salzman says. His first book, “Iron & Silk” (Random House, 1987), chronicled his two years in China teaching English and studying martial arts. In fact, Salzman’s writing is filled with these kind of moments. “It was a fun moment,” he says, laughing.

He calls over the store manager and they’re both poring over my driver’s license so I pull a Time magazine off the shelf, show them the Dewar’s ad on the back and say, ‘Look, Time says I’m old enough to drink.’ ” “But-and here’s the one time being briefly famous came in handy-the month the Dewar’s profile came out I was standing in the checkout line at Vons and the clerk says, ‘Let me see your ID.’ I show him my driver’s license and he’s looking very doubtful, thinking, I’m sure, that it’s fake. “Even though I’m 37, I still get carded,” he laments. Mark’s writing has a real intelligence and breadth to it.”Īll this fanfare and still Salzman has trouble buying a six-pack of beer. “He’s a rare bird-his love of music, this fascination he has with all the oddities of life.

The Soloist by Mark Salzman