Featured Book: Waldorf & Juli
In many ways Waldorf & Juli was my most disappointing book.
Not because of the writing!
I actually really thought I figured some things out with this one.
The back story.
After Eye in the Sky I was doing a couple of really good things. I was writing a lot, and I was talking with an agent out of Pittsburgh. My agent was telling me to slow it all down.
"Make sure you write a good book, first," she said. "The rest will sort itself out."
So I was working on a book I was calling Desperation Explodes Into Pain. That book was a monster and it was inspired by Grapes of Wrath and the Mellencamp song Jackie Brown.
I was living alone in New Haven, Connecticut. I was down in the dumps a little and poverty really saddened me. So I was working on Desperation....and I was sort of living like that too.
I needed to laugh a little.
So I also started writing a funny book...it was a book about a guy who meets a girl.
Then I imagined what it might be like to be married, have children, and grow old with said girl.
(I'm a long ways into my marriage these days - and let me tell you - Clifford is a lot like Waldorf).
So, why was the book disappointing?
Because it was mass-produced by a publisher out of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
I'm talking they pumped out a whole bunch of copies...in mass-market paperback...and the initial sales were great.
The reviews were terrific.
Two months in and I was on my way.
I thought of topping the best-seller lists.
The book was strong. The publisher was behind it.
And then Princess Diana was tragically killed...and the publisher went all in...with every single resource...on a book to capitalize on the tragedy...
...and the Princess Di book bankrupted the entire business because it stunk.
The entire process was numbing.
They wouldn't return the calls. They started selling off assets.
I got a call about 6 months after the book came out and it was from some guy who had left the publishing company.
"I have 1,000 copies of Waldorf & Juli...do you want them?" he asked. He was calling from somewhere in Utah. He wanted $6 a copy.
I told him to go to hell.
And for years now...I've seen the book for sale...elsewhere.
There was a class-action suit against the publisher, but it sort of died on the vine.
And the book?
It was the first time I actually truly wrote. I picked it up a little while ago and read a little.
I still liked it.
It was still funny to me.
A personal highlight came for me when I entered a bank in Connecticut one day...the extremely pretty teller was reading the book.
A total stranger! Reading my book!
"How's the book?" I asked her.
"It's great!" She said. "I never heard of the guy before, but I really love it."
I slid my paycheck to her and told her to check the name of the author.
The girl nearly had a heart attack.
What a great moment!
Waldorf & Juli.
What a happy, tragic couple!
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