Growing up...
... as a writer.
Can you believe this picture? Me, a century ago on my first computer. Look at that machine! The “Call Her Miss Ross” poster behind me says more than I realized at the time.
The original editions of “Call Her Miss Ross” and “Michael Jackson – The Magic and the Madness” have been out of print for more than twenty years. Those were my first two New York Times bestsellers. But as I got older, I grew uncomfortable with them.
Here’s why: They both felt less empathetic than I want my work to be. Less generous. When you’re a young punk writing books for the first time, that edge feels like… confidence. But when you live with those books for years, and then you grow up and live a real life yourself, it starts to feel like something else, something not fair. With those two, I just couldn’t live with them.
At the start of my career, my intention was simple. I just wanted bestsellers. That’s it. And as often happens when we set an intention, I got exactly what I asked for. But then I felt empty. There’s a six-year gap between Michael Jackson and my next book, Sinatra. That wasn’t accidental. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing anymore.
What I needed was a better intention.
I found it when I stopped wanting to just write about famous people and started wanting to write for real people. I wanted someone to finish one of my books and think, yes, that’s exactly how I feel about life. Or, yeah, that’s my mother for sure. Or I recognize that marriage, that loneliness, that hope… that’s all me.
If I could make someone like Jackie Kennedy feel familiar rather than distant, then the book wasn’t about fame at all. It was about being human. That then became my intention, and it stayed with me. I think that’s why there were eighteen more bestsellers. That and this personal philosophy: just because it’s true doesn’t mean it gets to be in the book. There are other considerations having to do with context and just being a decent person. When you read a book of mine, I think you get to know me as much as you do the subject.
What I came to understand is this: Fame? That’s just the wrapper. The real work is about the common journey underneath it. Grief, ambition, love, regret, fear, resilience, those are things we all move through. Once I understood that, I couldn’t go back to writing books that stood apart from the human experience instead of inside it. CHMR and MJ are available, but I rewrote them both as a grownup... and now I can live with them.
So that’s my story – and to think no one even asked for it!
I hope you guys are having a great weekend.
I don't know the version of your book on Michael Jackson that's out of print now, but I can definitely confirm that the version that you rewrote later has all the qualities that you describe as the "human experience". When I came across your book, I was looking for a child prodigy as a second figure in a novel centered around an extremely talented young pianist who threw away her career at a young age. She was a friend of mine, and I wanted to tell her story. Your biography of Michael, his greatness and his suffering, has helped me understand exactly that: the human experience behind the facade (or so I hope). I would love to send you my novel; it will come out in the spring.