John Stacks was the only other friend or colleague who had been there, too -- The Heartbreak Hotel -- the place a parent goes when their child dies before them. When I returned to work after my son’s death, John invited me down to his office. I look back and wonder how I could come back. The support of my colleagues in the New York Bureau of Time -- from all of the News Service and from edit -- buoyed me.
And then again, John had come back. The bureau, the magazine, the company had supported him. That’s the kind of place it was - collegial, compassionate, supportive.
John and I talked about our sons and our loss. He was Chief of Correspondents then. We cried and smoked and drank diet coke. Those couple of hours we spent talking were more useful to me than the sessions I spent with a grief counselor.
John Stacks started me on the way to my novel writing career. I worked for him as an administrative assistant in the New York Bureau when he was Bureau Chief and again when he was Deputy Managing Editor of TIME Magazine.
TIME Magazine was, for me, the most stimulating place on the planet. I received a lot of writing advice there: learn to write faster; do it until its done; writing is a muscle that gets stronger with exercise; any deadline can be met.
I credit John Stacks with giving me the question that started me writing my first novel. He’d read a short story that I submitted as an assignment for a writing class at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. We had lots of perks then like tuition reimbursements and John always approved and encouraged. He said he liked the story. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t critique it. I knew it needed improving. Instead he said this: “I wonder. What happens to those people - you know -- after . . .?”
Well, I felt like. . . Eureka! I knew then that I would/could/should write the novel that became RIVER, CROSS MY HEART.
Many of the things we talked about that first night, found their way into RIVER, CROSS MY HEART -- the parts about feeling like you’ve lost your life’s hope. That was the deeply painful territory we knew about. This bottoming out feeling that leads to resolve that leads to triumph became a theme for me for two novels.
John read drafts and discussed three of my manuscripts. His inquisitiveness helped guide me. He was always careful and respectful. He never tried to lard his ideas into the feedback.
When John became Deputy Managing Editor and I became his administrative assistant John was very generous with his vacation weeks. He never made me take my weeks at the same time he took his. So I got the benefit of his weeks and mine. When he went on vacation, he went – no calling – no projects. I got to write during his absence. We joked, but it was serious time.
John was the second creative mentor I lost this year. It's been a tough stretch! Once again the bottom, the resolve, the triumph of survival. I will miss John Stacks when I write. I write everyday because I knew John Stacks.
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