WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 23OPEN BOOK|Column
painter and reporter who, with her CIA-recruited husband, Cord
Meyer, was part of Georgetown society in the 1950s and early
’60s. Her affair with Kennedy, confirmed in the autobiography
of the Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee (who was also her brother-
in-law), began in 1961. She was shot to death three years later
on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath in Georgetown when
she was 43 years old. The murder remains unsolved.
Wolfe emphasizes that this is not a bio, nor is it journalism,
but rather “a work of art inspired by facts.” He says he felt like
“he was hearing her voice.” And his rendering of Meyer’s voice
is lively, compelling, and authentic. He walked along the path
where she was killed; he went to see the house where she lived.
In the book’s August 6 diary entry, Meyer reminisces about
her second presidential tryst:
I spent some girlie time fussing over presidential appointment
number two, rubbing L’Air du Temps into strategic places.... I
wondered if he smelled the perfume and considered me some sort
of floozy, as I’m usually boringly natural and prefer painting
canvases to faces.
Jack asked about my boys, and I was surprised.
Usually he’s either fucking or running the world.When Wolfe finished the book, a friend introduced him to Gail
Hochman at Brandt & Hochman literary agency. “He was a guy
with a novel,” Hochman tells me. “I met him for a drink and he
gave me some pages. It was this book, but not what you’re
reading now. It was impressionistic, not like a novel. But there
were dazzling set pieces.”
Wolfe says he was interested in language more than story,
whereas Hochman wanted more of a narrative arc. “I was happy
to listen,” Wolfe says. “I’m an advertising guy [with the WPP
group]—I’m used to people not half as smart as Gail telling me
about my writing!”
Wolfe started as a songwriter in his teens; he also worked in
carpentry, which got him interested in buildings, and
became an architect. Around 1984, he went into adver-
tising. “I’d rather write lines than draw them,” he says.
“It’s natural for me. I talk in headlines.”
Hochman says the manuscript for Lost Diary captured
her because when she read it she became fascinated by
someone she knew nothing about. She told Wolfe she
wanted to keep the dazzle but with a conventional flow.
“We worked on a number of drafts, and each time he
made gigantic strides, but I wanted to be careful,”
Hochman says. “I didn’t want to overwork it. There
were such great scenes, the movers and shakers of the
time, sitting and talking in living rooms: Ben Bradlee,
Katharine Graham, Annie Truitt; Mary taking LSD
with Marilyn Monroe. ”
When Hochman sent out the manuscript in February
2018, she thought of HarperCollins executive editor Sara Nelson.
“We had these two gorgeous projects together, so she was in the
first lineup,” Hochman says. “What I didn’t know was that she had
her own obsession with Mary! I didn’t even know who Mary was.”
Nelson was immediately interested. “I was always irresistibly
drawn to that period—the milieu of the ’60s, the Cold War, the
CIA, and what I knew about Mary,” she says. “Here was this
outrageous woman who did as she pleased. It’s the story of a
firebrand with a mystery at the center.”
Interestingly, Nelson says it never occurred to her that the
book was by a man when she first read it. “I was surprised,
because the voice was so good,” she tells me, adding that she did
still want some work done.
“Sara had a vision,” Wolfe says. “She wanted Mary’s voice
leavened with other voices—the women of Georgetown society.
It added another dimension to the book, and it was fun to create
the dialogue.”
Nelson also wanted the book to appear as a real diary with
dated entries. Wolfe says he resisted at first but saw how it gave
the book structure.
It’s a structure that works, since a key element of the mystery
is the rumored diary. There are several different accounts of
the diary, with Bradlee and CIA chief James Angleton as major
players in the puzzle of its existence, discovery, and destruc-
tion. Meyer had told friends that she was keeping a diary and
to find it if something happened to her. Wolfe opens the book
with the sentence: “If you are reading this, I am dead.”
Nelson saw a revision in summer 2018 and signed a contract
for world rights that September. Marketing plans include
radio, print, and online campaigns; social media; galley give-
aways; and outreach to Kennedy-related blogs and sites. As
Nelson notes, “It’s a piece of history but also an intriguing story
on its own.”
And ultimately, for Wolfe, who says he feels like he channeled
Mary’s voice, it’s “a work of obsession and passion.” ■Sara Nelson Gail Hochman