A Light Touch

Last week, I discussed the editing (or not) of Another Roadside Attraction.  I shared that with Tom, inviting him to chime in if he'd like. And chime he did. Quite passionately.  

 The Doubleday editor who handled Another Roadside Attraction was a young woman named Dorothy Pittman. Originally, a woman named Claudia something or other had been assigned to ARA, but she soon left to open a toy store in New Jersey with her husband.

In any case, only female hands touched my manuscript -- and they touched it lightly, indeed: so lightly, in fact, that it might be accurate to say that the book was virtually unedited. A few misspelled words, a couple of lapses in grammar, that was it. 

Any man who claims to have edited the book is a fraud and a liar, and I'd tell him so to his face.  

Tom Robbins

An apt beginning.