NP but Melanie Jackson

[Mark Kohut]

I pick up this Avon mass market paperback called REAL PEOPLE
by Alison Lurie, whom I have read but long ago. This novel is
copyrighted 1969..........

One thing that is interesting is that on the copyright page, rather
than citing the hardcover publisher---I am going to assume Ms. Lurie,
already critically successful with some earlier books licensed as mass
market editions, did have one for this short novel, but I will check that out---
the rights information refers to contacting the Melanie Jackson Agency and
gives her address. It says this edition was published "by arrangement with the 
author"...

This paperback printing was later than 1984 since it cites on the cover
her Pulitzer for that year for FOREIGN AFFAIRS. My guess is that this book and 
her
earlier work was reissued after her win. 

But, this is the most interesting bit: This novel is about a female writer 
spending 

a couple of weeks at a Writer's Colony (like Yadoo, but fictionalized) 
with major characters fictionalized
yet references to real writers, too (adds verisimilutude, of course). Philip 
Roth remarks, quotes referred to
here in 1969. We can assume the writer-narrator is probably modelled, 
sea-changed of course, on Ms. Lurie--
the narrator has published a book of short stories and is trying to write more. 

In the course of this novel the narrator-writer alludes to her agent----Candida. 
We know that Candida Donadio
was a real agent and Pynchon's first and Melanie Jackson became his second agent 
and, later, wife. 


More Misc. Ms Lurie has lifelong Cornell associations if i remember right, 
teaching there
I do believe.