"Well, actually," I replied, embarrassment mixing with pride, "I wrote it."

"You did?" the woman asked. Then she looked at my photo on the jacket, up at me, back to the photo and at me again. She did this a couple more times, as if watching a tennis match or identifying a suspect in a police lineup. Finally she lifted the book to my face and marveled, "Wow, this picture's so glamorous. It doesn't look like you at all."

Ironically, my book, "Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self," is about my preteen struggle with beauty. (I guess the woman spent all her time looking at the jacket photo and skipped the text.) But instead of being taken aback by her comment, I heard myself explain that I'd just gone running in 80-degree weather, that I was sweaty and smelly and greasy-haired and wearing a huge baggy T-shirt, so of course I look a little, well, different from the photo.

It wasn't until later that I wondered why I felt the need to justify myself to this woman. And more important, who would go up to a complete stranger and make an unflattering comment about her looks? I mean, you might tell a good friend that her upper lip needs waxing, or that she's got a piece of something disgusting stuck between her teeth, but you don't go around saying this stuff to strangers. It took me a while to realize that when you publish autobiographical material, people don't think of you as a stranger.

Soon after the Borders incident, I got a message on my answering machine from a young woman who waxed poetic about how much she enjoyed my book. Before she hung up she said, "I spent hours trying to find your number, and I'm not even sure this is the right one, so could you call me back and let me know if I reached you?" Flattered by her comments, I figured I'd give her the courtesy of a call.

"Oh my God!" she yelled when she heard my voice. "I'm so glad to talk to you! I hate my parents' guts, too!"

"I don't hate my parents' guts," I said.

"Well, in your book ... "

"In my book I was 11. Eleven-year-olds seem like they hate their parents' guts, but they're just being 11. See, the book's subtitle is 'A Diary of My Former Self.'"

"So, you don't hate your parents' guts?"

"Um, no."

"Oh," she replied, disappointed. "Well, I gotta go."

She wasn't the only reader who had trouble separating who I am today from what I chose to reveal about myself in my book. Later that week, I got an e-mail from a guy who asked me out on a date. The e-mail, which included a very attractive photo, a witty bio and praise for the book, seemed like a press release, and when I didn't respond, I received a follow-up e-mail asking if I was the Lori Gottlieb who wrote "Stick Figure," and if so, could I confirm that his first e-mail went through.

I wrote back a quick thanks for his note, only to receive a third e-mail asking if I'd meet him for coffee. I replied that I was in the middle of my book tour, but again, thanks. The fourth e-mail asked if he could take me out when I returned from the book tour. Finally I wrote that I don't feel comfortable meeting strangers, but I appreciated his interest in my book. It was the fifth e-mail that startled me most:

"I know from your upbringing that you have 'trust' issues, but you have nothing to worry about with me. I really understand where you're coming from."

"I don't have trust issues," I wrote back, "I have safety issues. You can read about them in my next book, 'Lori Gottlieb: A Diary of My Stalker Years.'" Not coincidentally, I've been getting a lot of hang-ups on my answering machine lately.

"Is there such a thing as memoir protocol?" I asked a friend who also just published a personal narrative. "Like, are there boundaries you can maintain, or is publishing self-revelatory material akin to opening Pandora's box? Does your entire life -- even the part you didn't write about -- become fodder for public scrutiny?"

"It's not supposed to," he said, "but people will ask about it anyway."

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"