By Martha Sharpe
Dear Chris:
I'm spending this afternoon bundling up the piles of paper that
are left behind after a book has been made - several sets page
proofs, copy-edited manuscripts, copies of drafts. This time it's
for Hugh Hood's novel, Near Water. His last. So I'm taking
some extra time with it.
He was so funny! So methodical, but in a consciously quirky, cocky
way. Nothing got by this guy. Not one detail. And to show it,
he wrote, "OK H" on every single page of copy edited
manuscript and again on every page of the proofs, and he did this
in every book he ever wrote. That means he wrote those letters
how many times? Hugh would figure it out ... around 6,260 times
for his New Age series alone. Some 17,000 times over the course
of all 32 books.
But I'm laughing now at his little messages in the margins: "How
about this for clean ms. copy!!!" and then again later, "What
a clean ms. eh? Wow! Hello Martha! Hello Shaun! - H." (He
was talking to Shaun Oakey, the copy editor of the last four or
five novels.) "Nothing to correct? Wow! How am I doin', Martha?"
Here's one that catches my breath: "Hood's Paradiso."
He wrote this at the end of chapter 8. His narrator, Matthew Goderich,
has just died of a stroke. Hugh, as you know, died on August 1,
ten days after a severe stroke. But get this: Sam Solecki's blurb
on the book jacket says, "If Proust was the inspiration for
some of [Hood's] earlier novels, he is joined by Dante Purgatorio
and Paradiso as the tutelary spirit for this one." Sam was
right, despite never having seen Hugh's marginalia. That Hugh:
he knew just what he was up to, and he knew we'd figure it out
too.
"Not bad, eh?" Hugh wrote at the end of the copy edited
manuscript. And this is what I loved about Hugh: his irreverence.
Some authors fight every comma; some shrug off the whole editorial
process ("whatever you think is best") - and the latter
may seem the easiest to deal with, but they're no fun. Hugh was
always fun, always there on the page with you, winking, celebrating
the almost-completion of several years' work.
I will miss him. But I'm very proud to have played a part in the
publication of the final few books in his wonderful New Age series.
Hugh has given us so much in his lovingly detailed portrayal of
characters we can all recognize from our own lives, and has chronicled
an age better than any historian during the past 30 years could
ever have done.
On the last page of the proofs of Near Water, Hugh makes
his final mark: "OK H. Hooray!"
Hooray for Hugh. And thank you.
All the best,
Martha Sharpe
Martha Sharpe is the publisher of House of Anansi press. This letter was sent by Martha to members of the media.