[ Home | Contents | Search | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Jasper
Date: 5/11/01
Time: 1:59:15 AM
Charlie and Pat,
Sorry about my lack of posting. I have been reading but have not been able to post for a variety of reasons.
I have to step in here and say something in defense of Dr. Lee.
There is no way to keep some factual errors out of a book about a subject as complex as the Bundy murders or to avoid saying some really stupid things on the air if you do enough interviews. The best you can hope for is to keep them to a minimum and pray that your readers and listeners will be kind. Usually they aren't.
My guess is that the 25-mile error was originally a typo, which was supposed to read 2.5 miles. I am further guessing that he spotted the error and it stuck in his mind. When the subject came up again so did the error because he was thinking one thing at one level (about the phony blood trail) and saying another (the thing that was stuck in his mind) that came from another level.
About the photos… Getting pictures reproduced correctly in a book is sometimes out of the hands of the writer. If there is a way to screw it up the typesetter or the printer or both will find a way to do it. The cover of Iago is missing a crucial blood drop. The pictures inside were great on the first proofs I got back but all in the wrong places. When they put them in the write places I found that the size of the printable page had shrunk by a quarter of an inch - enough to throw everything out of whack. As a result, some of my most important illustrations had to be shrunk down so small you can hardly see them. Book publish occurs on schedules that are sometimes inflexible so you have to live with what you get.
The photos themselves present a special problem. There are all kinds of copyright laws that make it difficult and sometimes impossible to print photos that aren't already in the public domain. If you don't have first generations photos of your own you are generally out of luck. The photos Lee put in his book where probably the best he could get and I'll bet you dollar to doughnuts that the ones he submitted were a hell of a lot better than the ones that showed up in print. --Jasper