An interesting interview with author, David Scott Milton

letters and attempts at corrections that they were unreadable. Many writers, particularly writers who were not very bright, only had originals of their material. What often happened was they would do the early drafts in long hand and then type up the final draft. If they lost the final draft they still had their original. But bozos like me, who wrote directly on their typewriter, often would only have the original. Which is what happened with The Quarterback. When Caroline Jenks, my agent, told me she couldn't find it, I went berserk. I wailed, I screamed, I smashed things. She finally calmed me down and said she would track it; she would find it. She had submitted it-she couldn't remember where-but it wouldn't be long before she'd get it back. She called me that evening. She had located it in her files-it had been submitted to Dell-in 1967. This was 1969. And why Dell, I demanded? Didn't she know they had already rejected it? Sentman was long gone from Dell, as were two or three editors after him. They had a new head editor, Bob Able. He had just taken over the job when Caroline called him to find out where my manuscript was. He later told me what had happened. He went searching for the manuscript and in an ancient cabinet at the far corner of the office, crammed at the very back of the highest shelf, was a hideously crumpled sheaf of papers-The Quarterback. He was in the process of placing it in an envelope to mail it back to Caroline when he off-handedly began to read the first page. He couldn't put it down. He zipped through it and marched directly into the publisher's office and declared this was a book he wanted to publish. It was his first choice as the new editor at Dell.

SUITE: Well if a writer needs to live life to be able to write about it, you must be an incredible writer. What an active life you've had. Why do you write?

DAVID: From the time I was a very small child I had the need to tell stories. Part of it was simply a kid with an overly active imagination and a compulsion to aggrandize himself by making up tales, fibbing I guess you could call it. As I grew older I became more and more obsessed with those loopy philosophical questions which give us bad

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