Earlier this year, NY Times news assistant Jennifer Mascia was browsing through the online archives of the paper’s “Modern Love” column when she realized she had her own story to tell. “It just poured out of me,” she says of the article detailing the truth behind her father’s criminal record, including secrets that were only revealed on her mother’s deathbed. Shortly afterwards, as literary agents and movie producers began asking if she wanted to do more with the story, a colleague at the Times referred her to Alice Martell, who was immediately excited by the prospect of expanding the article into a book. (“But the most surprising reaction to the story came from inside the Times newsroom,” Mascia said. “Suddenly, everybody knew who I was, even the masthead names.”)
“If it’s done right,” Martell said, “a memoir reads like fiction, and you learn a lot about the human condition, but it’s even more satisfying, because you’re saying to yourself, it’s all true! But the writing has to be astounding; the bar is just set so high now.” She believes Mascia has what it takes. “Her writing is so nuanced,” she explains. “You can go back and reread her sentences and realize that she’s chosen just the perfect word each time.”
Martell had Mascia keep things light, whittling down an fifty-page proposal by more than half. “If you don’t have somebody fall in love at that point,” the agent says, “they’re probably not the right editor.” Villard editorial director Bruce Tracy remembered Mascia’s article when the proposal came his way. “It was love at first sight,” he says of the story outline, which Mascia says hews to the structure that emerged from “Modern Love” editor Dan Jones‘s original guidance. “I wanted to get it before anybody else got excited about it,” Tracy adds; personal narrative is a big part of Villard’s editorial mix, he explains, and he sees Mascia’s work as comparable to that of Janice Erlbaum (another author Martell brought to the house), Helene Stapinski, even Mary Karr. “Jennifer writes with tremendous insight and self-awareness,” Tracy says, “even about a time when she wasn’t so self-aware.” So he made a pre-emptive offer, Mascia accepted, and though there is no firm timeline for the book’s publication, Tracy has his fingers crossed for early 2009. For her part, Mascia is taking a journalistic approach, searching through court records for information about her father’s crimes and preparing to fly down to Florida to interview other family members who feel that enough time has passed for the truth to finally come out.