ABSENT FRIENDS' on-sale date in Sept. 28, and its publication date is Oct. 5. The first is, as I've said, the earliest date booksellers are allowed to sell the book. But that doesn't mean they all will, so it'll go up on some shelves a few days later. The second date is the date by which the book is virtually guaranteed to be in all stores. Only virtually, because of course the publisher doesn't control the bookstores and so can't really assure this. But in relation to reviews, the point is this: some papers may choose to review AF this weekend, just before it's available, to get the closest thing the book pages get to a "scoop." Others may choose to wait until next week or weekend, closer to when it's on shelves so people can buy it (assuming the review's good) without getting frustrated. Still others may choose to ignore the book completely. You don't know whether you're getting a review in this or that paper until you see it. So this is a nail-biting weekend for me, and I won't know until Monday or Tuesday, because though my publisher gets all the papers' reviews through a clipping service, they have to first go through them then, and then send mine on to me, if there are any.