A Surprise Christmas Gift

I’ve dutifully collected and publicized “best books of the year” lists for a long time now, but never before has a work bearing my byline featured on such a roll of honor.

This last weekend—on Christmas Eve, in fact—prolific American novelist James Reasoner finally announced his own 10 favorite books of the year. Among those choices were Lawrence Block’s The Autobiography of Matthew Scudder (LB Productions), Lee Goldberg’s Malibu Burning (Thomas & Mercer), and Manning Lee Stokes’ The Grave’s in the Meadow (1961). Touted, too, was The Art of Ron Lesser Volume 1: Deadly Dames and Sexy Sirens. That gorgeous work was edited principally by Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham, but includes an extensive interview I did with artist/illustrator Lesser.

I couldn’t be happier with this turn of events.

After publishing half a dozen non-fiction (mostly history) books during the 1990s and early 2000s, I decided to try penning fiction, instead. That switch hasn’t proved to be nearly as successful as I’d hoped, and I had pretty much resigned myself to never again seeing my name appear on a book front. But then Deis asked to incorporate my Lesser exchange into a study of that artist’s lengthy career. I would have been an idiot to say no, so I didn’t. Only upon the book’s publication last May, however, did I realize my byline was on its cover.

That recognition has now been amplified by the book being selected as one of Reasoner’s top picks of 2023. Thank you to Bob Deis and Bill Cunningham for making all of this possible!