Dedicated to …

A ded­i­ca­tion is per­haps one of the few things a writer can give that oth­ers can­not. With almost eighty books pub­lished I’ve post­ed a lot.

The first one—my first book (Things That Some­times Hap­pen)—was to my son, Shaun. After all, I wrote the orig­i­nal sto­ries for him. Indeed, all my chil­dren have had books ded­i­cat­ed to them. Nieces and nephews too. Cousins. Aunts and uncles.

I have even con­sid­ered com­pos­ing a mem­oir by sim­ply writ­ing about all these ded­i­ca­tees, and relat­ing why they were impor­tant in my life.

By putting a name in Beyond the West­ern Sea, I was, as it were, announc­ing pub­licly how fond of this par­tic­u­lar lady I had become. Indeed, I mar­ried her.

There is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a con­nec­tion between the con­tent of the book and the person’s name which sits on the page. Often it is just my way of not­ing affec­tion and/or appre­ci­a­tion. There are excep­tions. Iron Thun­der is ded­i­cat­ed to a good friend of mine because he grew up in the vicin­i­ty of the place where the bat­tle between the Mon­i­tor and the Mer­ri­mac took place. A few peo­ple are named, not because I know them well, but because I admire them. There are some pro­fes­sion­al names such as editors.

The two peo­ple not­ed in The True Con­fes­sions of Char­lotte Doyle at some point became angry at me, and no longer will speak to me. Their names remain.

Most peo­ple when they learn I have ded­i­cat­ed a book to them say “Thank you,” and that’s more than enough. Some speak of a “Great hon­or.” Oth­ers have nev­er respond­ed. (Maybe they felt insult­ed by the book.) One per­son (name­less here) said “It’s about time you did that.” One book has no ded­i­ca­tion because I think I wished the name to be a secret. Alas, I can­not remem­ber who that was. Anoth­er book sim­ply reads “For us,” mean­ing for my wife and me. I nev­er ded­i­cat­ed a book to my par­ents because they were opposed to my becom­ing a writer. An admis­sion: before writ­ing this I looked at some ear­ly ded­i­ca­tions. There are two which are a mys­tery to me.

Oh well: This post­ing is affec­tion­ate­ly ded­i­cat­ed to my blog readers.