When I’m not busting my ass to write stories for you people, I am a copy editor. That job title means “the person who makes sure all the words are right,” and “right” means grammatically, stylistically, and factually correct. I’ve spent the last seven years correcting people in absentia, which is actually perfect for me.

For several years I worked for one of the world’s largest book retailers. (Hint: It begins with B.) Among my many responsibilities was the in-store magalog/catazine. It was an “advertorial” product: Containing editorial content such as interviews and excerpts, but really there to sell, sell, sell.

At any rate I was the only person who touched it editorially. I wrote, rewrote, or edited every word. One day I was editing a “blurb” about a new book by the daughter of a famous biographer. We’ll call her father Famous Author: He has written numerous #1 New York Times bestsellers, mostly historical biographies. He’s been a huge success for decades.

Even though this book was by his daughter, the blurb made no mention of it. I thought it would help her out if I mentioned him, so I added “…Sally Author, daughter of the late Famous Author.” See, I had it in my mind that he had recently died; it had been a while since he’d had a book out. One of those old cooters had died recently; wasn’t it this guy?

I was about to fact-check myself online when someone came up behind me and startled me. We talked about something for a while, then I had to go look at something…

So I came back to my desk, finished editing the magalog and it soon went to print.

___

Then one day I got word that the president of our company had received a letter from Famous Author’s lawyer, in which said lawyer pointed out that F.A. was “very much alive,” not deceased as we had indicated, and in fact he was working on a new book. He suggested in that subtle lawyerly way that we retract what we’d said about his client being “the late F.A” and make this right.

I was, to say the least, mortified. I also knew there was no one to blame but me. That’s the down side of having complete editorial responsibility and the final say-so in all these matters. Now there was a gigantic klieg light pointed from the president of the company’s office onto me, the literary murderer in the marketing department.

My immediate boss called me into his office. This was going to be death. I was sure I would be fired for this. I’m no fool: I got the company in dutch with a multi-million-copy-selling Pulitzer Prize winner, you think they’re not going to fire me for that?

“Oh my God, boss, I am just so sorry. I don’t know what to say.” I told him what happened, how I had gotten F.A. mixed up with someone else. I was near tears. “What are we going to do?”

He let me stew for a long 10 seconds, then, looking down at the desk and then back up at me, he said with a mischievous smile: “There’s only one thing we can do. We’ll just have to kill him.”

Phew. It’s nice when your boss gets your back.

Tags: New York Times, Pulitzer Prize