Authors are known to be a cantankerous lot who disapprove of just about everything their publishers are doing, including (frequently) the selection of the cover. I am no different, disliking virtually all the covers of my books, except the original 1972 trade paperback of The Big Fix displayed in the right column (it won a design prize) and a few Dutch translations published in the seventies and eighties. [Didn’t you like the old Warners reprint of California Roll with the sushi gun?-ed. Yes, that was pretty good.]
But that’s over. I am pleased to say that the cover of my first non-fiction book BLACKLISTING MYSELF: Memoir of a Hollywood Apostate in the Age of Terror (to be published by Encounter Books in January ) is terrific – at least I think so. Designer Nick Collier has done a superb job with an old photo of me, taken by my father in, I think, 1967, when I was still in my early twenties. He overlaid it with some burning film stock (hey, it’s a Hollywood memoir – at least in part). It’s eerie for me to compare that photo with the fedora-clad man in his sixties whose image sits near the top of this blog. Tempus fugit is a cliché for a reason.
One note about the book: I would like to thank the long time readers of this blog who in many ways inspired me to write it. The immediacy and, let’s admit it, often slapdash quality of blogging made me wonder if I could ever write in a longer and more permanent form again. Also, my responsibilities at Pajamas Media were often all consuming. But I felt that I owed it to my readers and to myself to tell my story with a bit more fullness and complexity. So I burned the midnight oil and did it. Again thank you. (Maybe some more fiction will even be in the offing.)
If you would like to pre-order the book, you may do so here. When you receive it (yes, I know it will be a while), if you would like me to personally inscribe a copy, send it to the Pajamas Media office in El Segundo. Not only would I be delighted – I would be honored.
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