I was wondering, Harriet: how many books did you edit for Jim before you found him to be romantic?
One book, but it was a big mother of a book. [laughter] It was a book called The Fallon Blood , which was his first published novel, an historical novel of Charleston during the American Revolution. [inaudible] So we cut it, and it was taking up three lines a page. I said, can’t we kill some of these battles? And he said, “Harriet, I’ve already avoided…“—I’ve forgotten what it was—”…fifty of the Revolutionary battles by sending the hero off wounded to Georgia to recover. I really can’t cut any more.” Okay, so we did all that, worked together, and then at publication time, the book was being distributed by Ace Books, where I’d been editorial director, and the director of publicity quit in the month of publication. So I drove him down to Savannah where he had one of the famous booksignings that beginning authors run into—you go to the bookstore, and they have one of your book. [laughter] [inaudible]
And so, we had done a number of things like that, and he had befriended my son, who was then eleven. And one afternoon, he’d come in [inaudible] And Will came running up to me where I was working at my desk, and he said, “Mom, he says he wants to take me to see the Star Trek movie. Can I go?” He said, “Huh, huh? Can I go?” And I said, “Well, let me come downstairs with you,” and I said, “Can I come too?” [laughter]
Harriet also tells these stories here (for the bit about editing The Fallon Blood ) and here (for the bit about her son); we had better audio for that interview, so the information is more complete.
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