John Sandford

I'm humbled.

I wrote about my flux over the John Sandford novel I'm reading (previous post) and his son responded. (If only we could all have such courage and commitment following us wherever we went in life.) Sort of reminds me of the movie Avatar, though I couldn't quite tell you why.

Could be that right now I'm listening to Etta James telling me that "You Don't Know What Love Is."

At any rate, our exchange was honest and true. Here is the warrior's (Avatar hangover) response to my request to reprint his clarification:

Oh, feel free to print it. I just fear it's going to sound really defensive, because... it's kind of defensive. That's the problem with defending things, I guess.
I also have a problem I picked up in academia: lecturing someone is evidently considered "rude" in real life, whereas in academia it's generally acknowledged as a reasonable and very efficient method of rapidly communicating information. Maybe I'm just too sensitive to maybe possibly insulting people unintentionally, but that's only because I've done so many times before. Alas.

So, you get the drift that this kid is cool.

So, when you read his response, it will mean even more:

Just a comment (or, rather, an explanation) here, but let me give you the context first, since that's actually relevant.
I'm the son of John Sandford, as well as his webmaster. Every day (or every other day) I scan the blogs to see who's been saying things about him, and what, and why. It's not for any real reason other than a desire on my part to see what the current "feeling" is about him. Or something like that.
One of the more prevalent things I've encountered, with regard to the Virgil books, is that they were co-authored by someone who's barely credited at all. Some go as far as saying that they were totally written by this "co-author" and just stamped with the JS seal of approval (or somesuch). You didn't do either of those things - you just speculated - but I figured I'd write in and explain what's going on.
If you look at it, the dedication doesn't actually say "coauthor". It says "written with" and that's a lot more ambiguous. "Dark of the Moon" was "written with" Larry Millett, and the next two books in the series were also "written with" people: Chuck Logan for "Heat Lightning" and Bill Gardner for "Rough Country". They didn't actually do any of the actual writing (although Logan TRIED, to his credit, producing a far-too-long and too-detailed outline which got mostly scrapped). They were, in essence, glorified research assistants, doing much the same job I did from 1997 to 2004, when my dad and I shared an office in St.Paul. If the author needs to know about such-and-such a town, the R.A. can go there and check it out and report back. And research aside, there's the sit-around-and-brainstorm bull sessions that really help the book along. Again, the kind of stuff that I did when we shared the same office. But Millett, Logan, and Gardner didn't actually do any of the WRITING.
For the third book of the Kidd series, I was credited in the author's note with helping the book. For the fourth in the series, my sister and I were both credited. I can tell you that we did not do any of the actual writing - that was 100% John Sandford - and it was the exact same kind of work that Millett, Logan, and Gardner did for their respective "co-authorships".
This doesn't stop people from writing in and complaining about it. Or, worse, writing to each other and complaining in a kind of self-verifying echo chamber where there's no chance of The Truth Of The Matter getting out. When you have six people mutually bitching about how the author's sold out and doesn't even write his own books any more, without contacting ANYone to even ask if that's what's going on, you get a perfect environment for rumors to become "fact". Yes, that makes me sad too. There's nothing I can do about it, and a long time afterwards I'll get email from someone saying that they've been on the outs with Sandford ever since he stopped writing his own books.
Anyway... I just wanted to say that the weird scene transitions you've seen in the recent Sandford books ARE all-Sandford, and not "inspired" by the mysterious and un-credited "co-author" so many people have accused him of using as a ghost-writer. Not that you said that they were, but I kind of felt that implication. So... yeah. Now you know.
Also... I'm sorry if this email comes off as sounding really arrogant or mean or whatever. It's not at all intended to be that. I'm just trying to correct a (possibly) mistaken impression out of a (probably) misplaced case of "Someone Is Wrong On The Internet" syndrome. Just so you know.

I'm sitting here right now to tell you that if I was a John Sandford fan before, I'm an even bigger one now. A jerk simply doesn't get this kind of intelligent, committed support.

Think I might even start reviewing some of his books online. Who knows?

All I can say is . . .

Truth is the heart. And when the heart is good, we're all better for it.

Thank you, Ros. I'm in your debt.

CR: Dark of the Moon John Sanford (and Ros, just so you know, I'm a slow reader . . . nothing wrong with the story here).

It's all better with friends.