I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that I became a writer so that I could write The Family Liar.
I wrote the first draft in 1982. Wanna know how little I knew about publishing back then? I thought I would write a novel, send it to a publisher, get back a printed version, and be done with it. I’d brush off my hands, say “Did it!” and move on to other things.
The problem was that it was a terrible novel. There wasn’t a proper ending and—no surprise—it read like what it was: the work of a rank amateur. I sent it to a literary agent and received a nice rejection. The real response, though, came from friends. The nicest thing one friend could think to say was, “Well . . . it is a novel.”
I spent my free time over the next eight years trying to learn to write. During the 1980s, I wrote historical novels that I never published. Now I figure they were practice. In 1991, I entered a graduate program in creative writing. In 1992, I began publishing short pieces in literary magazines. Some of those stories eventually became part of the final version of The Family Liar.
Because it took me ten years to publish my first piece of fiction, I felt like a member of the slow group. Fortunately, in 1992 one of my professors assigned Ted Solotaroff’s essay, “Writing in the Cold,” in which Solotaroff suggests that it can take about ten years of practice to become a proficient fiction writer. I found this comforting. My younger classmates, who had only been writing for two or three years, were less comforted.
It took a brush with mortality to give what became The Family Liar another push. In 1995, a lab mixed up my test results and for about three hours, I thought I was seriously ill with about 5 years to live. Instead of feeling panic, I felt remarkably zen. In a moment of clarity, I thought, “If I have only five years, I want to try again to write my novel.”
I don’t think it’s possible to imagine what it would be like to have only five years left, but I felt like I was given a gift. Since I knew what I’d do if I only had five years, I figured that’s what I should do right away.
During my first summer break from teaching community college, I began work again on the novel. I don’t remember the original title, but I sent it to a literary agent who loved the book. She told me the title should be The Family Liar. She tried to sell it, but couldn’t. At the time, it was more than 400 pages.
The agent and I became close friends.
I tried again to do a better version in 2005, but I stopped halfway because I could see the idea wasn’t working.
After writing Rebels, Robbers, and Radicals, I figured I’d try one more time. The new final version is about half the length of the 1995 draft.
Working with major publishers can be thrilling. It can also be grueling. My last two experiences were not good, so I vowed never to do it again. (At that point, I’d done nine books with Abrams, one with Macmillan, one with Houghton Mifflin, and a few others as a ghostwriter.)
So, I decided to indie-publish. This meant I could do the cover however I wanted to. I did the cover myself, playing with Photoshop for months to get the graphics the way I wanted them.
I have also had moments of panic thinking, “Do I really want to publish this?” Such panic is ironic given the history I just recounted.