When A Time to Kill was published twenty years ago, I soon learned the painful lesson that selling books was far
more difficult than writing them. I bought a thousand copies and had trouble giving them away. I hauled them in the trunk of my car and peddled them at libraries, garden clubs, grocery stores, coffee shops, and a handful
of bookstores. Often, I was assisted by my dear friend
There are stories we will never tell.
Fetching Raymond 45
By the time the news of Bailey’s accident spread through the rule settlement of Box Hill, there were several versions of how it happened. Someone from the construction company called his mother reported that he had been injured when some scaffolding collapsed at a building site in downtown Memphis, that he was undergoing surgery, was stable, and was expected to survive.
His mother, an invalid, weighed over 400 pounds and was known to be excitable, missed some of the facts as she began to scream and carry on. She called friends and neighbors, and with each replaying of the tragic news various details were altered and enlarged. She neglected to write down the phone number of the person from the company, so there was no one to call to verify our discount the rumors that were multiplying by the minute.
