I think it was in the seventies that I first met my editor. I seem to remember bell-bottom jeans and sideburns, both huge. In any event, it was in the last century, in my dressing room after a performance. He was working for a publishing house. “You should write a book,” said the guy who would become my editor. He had a huge head of curly hair growing out in all directions like a sunflower; it was the first time I had ever seen a Jewfro. “Really, I think you should write a book,” he repeated. Write a book. I liked the sound of it, to be able to say: “I wrote a book.” It appealed to me greatly to share something in common with Doctorow, Dostoyevsky, Fitzgerald, and Melville, minus a minor aspect or two—like the content.
His suggestion aroused in me that lifelong respect for the written word and the individual who writes it, passed on to me by my father and several of my teachers. To be a writer, automatically conveyed the notion of intelligence and erudition, never mind that the opus might be kindred to Curious George Vomits at the Circus, a book with more pictures than words. I had seen Dale Evans, Roy Rogers’s partner in the saddle, on The Mike Douglas Show, promoting her latest book about her favorite subject, Christian faith. I believe Mike said it was her fourteenth book, which sent the audience into applause and awe. Ms. Evans acknowledged it by smiling proudly. Then Mr. Douglas asked her the most relevant, highly literary question: “Let me ask you this about your book, Dale: How long does it take you to turn out one of those babies?” This was hardly a question in the mode of a New York Times book critic. I do not mean to be patronizing, but Dale Evans, no doubt a good-hearted person, was hardly a woman of letters, though she could say she’d written fourteen books. I put the idea of writing a book on hold.
“I still say you should write a book,” said this editor when I bumped into him twenty years after he first said it.
“So you still think I should write a book?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Well, the idea is intriguing, I must say. I’ve performed on television, Broadway, in movies, on records, and of course the comedy material I write and perform. I’ve written articles for magazines and a screenplay for Warner Brothers. I should write a book.”
“Oh, you should,” he said.
“You know something? I absolutely agree, it’s a great idea, writing a book. I’ll write a book.”
“I think you definitely should,” he said.
“You’re right, it’s time I wrote a book.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind,” he said. “You, my friend, should . . . write . . . a book.”
“A book about what?” I said. There was a twenty-minute silence. “Well, that’s not important, we can always think of something later,” I said.
That’s the reason I wrote this book. Because I should write a book.