BESTSELLERS & BEST FRIENDS
My book publishing blog, with murder mysteries woven through it.
If this is your first visit, be sure to start with “1. Let’s do it!”
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I had lunch with Liz Hammer today. She’s a senior editor with Macmillan. Liz and I first met years ago when she was on the staff of Spy magazine and I placed an article with her. We became good friends and have stayed so since.
Before lunch, I looked up that Spy article. And hell, it’s still funny! BUT ONLY if you were around in the 1980s for Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and their incredibly popular TV show, “The PTL Club.” They were so annoying, so corrupt, so stupid, and like all televangelists so loved by so many (shoot me now!).
My issue
Jim on left, Tammy Faye on right, poor thing in the middle
Jim eventually got caught paying hush money to cover up an alleged rape. Then both of them were caught neck deep in financial fraud. Felony charges, conviction, and imprisonment soon followed.
Tammy Faye, who did a lot crying on the show, died in 2007.
Eternal conman (and top-notch Christian) Jim resurfaced in 2021, only to be quicky charged by federal and state authorities for selling a fake Covid cure.
Anyway, while writing one of my books (The Pessimist's Journal of Very, Very Bad Days of the 1980s), I ended up looking through Tammy Faye’s two books, I Gotta Be Me and Run to the Roar.
A theme soon emerged. I pitched an idea to Spy and they grabbed it. Here’s a half-assed shot of the article. Enjoy!
Anyway, today, Liz and I quickly got around to the death of Macmillan editor, Tom Hoza. Last week, Tom was riding his bicycle to work when he was hit by a car. The driver took off toward New Jersey. Despite wearing a proper helmet, Tom died. The car has not been found, nor the driver identified.
“It’s awful, scary, you know,” said Liz, her hands shaking, “how Tom was killed in the same way as a character in a manuscript that was submitted to him.”
Huh? I had no idea what Liz was talking about, “What?”
Liz took a deep breath and dived in, “We had our sales director’s niece in the office, going through unsolicited manuscripts that still somehow find their way to our offices, you know, so the niece could pick up a bit of experience to toss onto her resume. Anyway, there was a manuscript addressed to Tom about the owner of a bookstore who solved murder mysteries. You know, a cozy mystery.
Anyway, in this manuscript, an editor named Tom Hoza, you know, just like our real Tom Hoza, acquires mysteries just like Tom does – or, shit, did – and is cycling to work, at our old Flatiron Building address (Broadway and 23rd), and is hit by a car and killed.
(Btw, the best thing about the Flatiron Building is that my son and daughter-in-law met and fell in love there, when both worked for Macmillan.)
I’m also thinking about how Liz, this great editor, says “you know” too often. Once I start hearing it, well, it gets annoying.
The Flatiron Building (Broadway and 23rd)
I started to signal the waiter for a check.
“Hold on,” Liz paused my arm, “It gets weirder,” she looked me in the eyes, “the story gets to be about you.”
“What?”
“Yep, the writer used your name for a character who, you know, has a book publishing blog—"
Holy shit. “That’s so—
“And,” Liz cut me off, “you’re the murderer.”
What the hell? “Have you read it?”
“No, the intern tossed the submission. Just like she’s supposed to do with any unsolicited manuscript. Her task was simply to quickly look at it, in case, you know, there’s that miracle of a decent book among thousands of submissions. It was only after Tom’s death that she told me about the discarded submission.”
This was bizarre. I ordered coffee.
Liz continued, “Ellie, the intern, tells me that the character gets hit by a car in the bike lane at 9th and 23rd, and is killed.” Liz paused, “Exactly, you know, where Tom was killed.”
“Unbelievable.”
“Exactly. Then in this novel, you know, this guy who works in a little mystery-themed bookshop in the West Village and likes to solve mysteries, figures out that you were, you know, the killer.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Bike lane, 9th Avenue and 23rd Street
Liz continued, “The submission was dated two months ago. The intern happened to open and read it a week after Tom was killed,” she paused, “somebody out there had it planned.”
Liz paused, I sipped my coffee, I needed a smoke.
“Oh, and we, you know, told the police about the submission and about how, you know, you’re supposedly the killer.”
I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t. But here you go dear reader because it seems blog-worthy, especially compared to a lot of the other crap I’ve posted here.
Weird thing is, as I write this, I think I’m capable of murder. Because I’d nearly kill to read that submitted manuscript.
Tomorrow: a memorial service