An editor at Doubleday wants to meet with 31-year-old James Francis Smale. The publishing house is interested in James’s manuscript. His novel is about a mother, very much like his own mother, and her son, who is very like James. Obviously, this young man writes what he knows. The editor who walks into the conference room is Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Talkative James is stunned. Set in 1992 New York, The Editor by Steven Rowley is the story of two mothers, Mrs. Onassis and Mrs. Smale. Mrs. Onassis spends a year pushing James to write to the emotionally honest conclusion that he is avoiding. Mrs. Smale spends those same months avoiding her son, refusing to read the manuscript and breaking his heart. Set in a world before emails and internet, when sons called their mothers collect and typewriters were still the tools of the trade, this is an absolutely delightful read. A perfect choice for the month of May. Rowley is the author of Lily and the Octopus, which made the American Booksellers Association’s IndieBound Bestseller List.
Maureen Millea Smith is a librarian at the Edina Library and a Minnesota Book Award-winning novelist.
