There was a brief silence, so I could hear the crackling on the phone line, and then I asked Roger why, if Laurie wrote the book, she didn't take credit for it. She and her husband owned one of the first TVs in town and often on a Sunday, there'd be 15 or 20 people in her living room. She was the life of the party. What I think is that no book is wholly written by a solitary mind toiling away in a quiet room with the door shut. All writing is collaborative, the result of a dialogue between the writer and his editor and his friends and the people he meets in cocktail lounges.
Some writing is shockingly collaborative.
Likewise, editor Gordon Lish rigorously pruned the sentimentality out of Raymond Carver's early stories. Then, there are Wilkens' undeniable literary gifts. The articles Laurie wrote for the Citizen in the '50s are eloquent glimpses of a small town, sparkling vignettes that itch to transcend the limitations of daily journalism. Laurie was 11 years older than Grace, and maternal. Fearing something terrible, Laurie would rush to New York.