An interesting interview with author, David Scott Milton

owners of Antheneum, once told me that it was his belief that there are people all around the country who read one book a year, and when all these people for some reason, which he had never been able to divine, settle on the same book, that book has been anointed and becomes a runaway best-seller. And he had no idea what caused this to happen to one book and not another. He had been a publisher, oh, I don't know, forty years when I had this conversation with him-he went all the way back to the days of the great Maxwell Perkins-and he told me he had learned virtually nothing about what brings about a best-seller.

SUITE: Can you ever see yourself not writing anymore?

DAVID: That's the easiest question of the day-never, unless I am physically or mentally incapacitated.

SUITE: Pets? Types and names, please.

DAVID: One cat, seventeen years old and in superb health. Tigger is her name. I am a cat person. Over the years I've had a variety of other pets, dogs, birds, and some exotic animals, but ultimately it's always come down to cats. Before Tigger, I had Skinny, a Manx cat and a true genius and Trotsky, a finely bred Himalyan and a moron. They both lived to be sixteen. I had them at the same time and they loathed each other. Skinny was the first and I acquired Trotsky to keep her company. Skinny, realizing she was a dope, would have absolutely nothing to do with her. They both went on like this for years. Trotsky died first. Skinny did not mourn her one nanosecond. The most unusual pet I ever had-and one that was quite fun-was a Tejon or Coatimundi. I acquired him in Mexico when I was working on The Quarterback. I had to smuggle him into the United States. I was hitchhiking back to my hometown of Pittsburgh with the Tejon, who was named Moss, in a wicker basket. We were having a meal in Jim's Frontier Restaurant outside of San Antonio, Texas when a car went out of control in the parking lot-driver was an army captain who was drunk-and plowed through the window of the restaurant. I was hit head-on as was Moss in the wicker basket. We both flew about thirty feet in the air and survived, Moss completely unscathed, I with a sizeable lump on my forehead and a cut hand, but no

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