Who Really Wrote Hard Choices?

                       
While Hillary Clinton was on her recent Hard Choices book tour, a writer/editor I know asked a perhaps difficult question: Who, he wondered, wrote it for her?

Clearly, the writer presumed Hillary had not in fact written the book she was signing as her own. Having a book ghost-written for them is a common practice with celebrities, some of whom give credit to the help (including a by-line), many of whom do not. I of course know nothing of Hilary's actual role in writing Hard Choices, but I do have a lot of experience in ghost-writing. So I found his question interesting.

Hillary's publisher at Simon &Schuster, Jonathan Karp, says in a letter to potential readers:

"The author worked on Hard Choices from February 2013 through May 2014, mostly on the third floor of her home in Chappaqua, New York. The book principally covers her four years as America's 67th Secretary of State, but those experiences are informed by events throughout her entire public life, which she also describes. As her editor, I'm pleased to report that Secretary Clinton addressed every topic I raised while working on the manuscript, through numerous drafts."

I seriously doubt that "worked on" included Hillary actually sitting down at a keyboard and spending the necessary thousands of hours researching, evaluating, and then pounding out 650 pages, including "numerous drafts". Hillary is a public figure, with commitments and obligations that keep her rather busy. She also seems to be laying the groundwork for a run for the Presidency in 2016; again, time and energy required. These factors lead me to suspect she had help from someone like me, a hired professional; perhaps more than one. But does that mean Hillary didn't actually write the book?

During my years at the Kennedy Space Center I wrote over twenty science papers for NASA and contractor executives (never a full length book). These always dealt with work performed under that manager's general direction. I put all the words (plus diagrams, illustrations, etc.) on paper. Of course my name never appeared when these were published, usually in the proceedings issued by the aerospace conference where the executive presented the paper. But in most cases the exec told me what he wanted, provided source materials, went over early drafts, and made suggestions and recommendations. He (and they were all 'he's') usually had my paper vetted by some of the working engineers on his staff, and their suggestions/corrections were incorporated. The final product was far more my work than the exec's, but he served as collaborator and overseer. To say that I 'wrote the paper for him' would be an oversimplification and exaggeration.

And if you want to know why the execs liked and wanted these papers (in addition to the usual enhanced status from peers and in the general aerospace community), they justified trips to present them at aerospace conferences in (off the top of my head), France, England, Italy, Japan and Russia; though most were presented in the U.S.

This is of course conjecture on my part, but nevertheless I'd bet next month's SS check that Hillary did have help. Based on my own experience, I'd also bet that she worked closely with whoever sat in front of the keyboard, in the manner described above. I'd bet she told him/her what she wanted, supplied the source materials, worked closely with said writer during production, and guided the author toward the final result. (She may even have first-drafted key parts herself, if they were relatively short.) The final manuscript said what she wanted to say. In the larger and truer sense, it is her work.

If I'm right in my conjectures, based on my own experiences, it isn't really fair to say that someone 'wrote the book for her' . . . and come election time, if she's on the ballot Hillary still gets my vote.

Photo by Marc Nozell used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license