It was back in the geological era known as the Olympia Portable Typewriter Age when I was scraping out a living as a full-time freelance writer, mostly for small business publications. One day my phone rang. The caller was a PI, a private investigator who wanted to write a book about his career of nabbing adulterous spouses. He knew he needed to work with a professional writer, so he called me. He said he had been quite impressed with the lyrical tone of my prose in publications such as The Whirlpool Dealers’ Magazine, Fence Industry and the Foreman’s Letter. Well, not really. He called me because I was the only writer listed in the Washington, D.C. Yellow Pages.
We put together a book proposal and, at that point, I knew that I needed to find an agent to sell the project to a publisher. I’d been doing some networking and had made friends with a more established writer who had lived in Europe for a time and had written several successful books about the Danish resistance in World War II. He referred me to his New York agent, a man with the patrician name of Julian Bach.
Julian got us a book contract. We wrote Caught in the Act. It sold at least 150 copies worldwide and I returned to magazine writing.
About a year later my phone rang. The caller was Julian Bach. He said he had a young man in his office who needed a co-author for a book project. He wanted the two of us to chat for a few minutes and see if we might want to work together. The young man got on the phone and we began to talk. His name was Billy Hayes and he outlined his story for me. It seems that Billy had tried to smuggle a supply of hashish onto a plane at the Istanbul International Airport, and he had miscalculated the consequences. In America, he figured he would have gotten a rather small sentence, perhaps even probation. But a Turkish court sentenced him to death, which it later commuted to thirty years.
That still sounded like death to Billy, and after five years and several aborted attempts he managed to escape from the Turkish prison and make his way across the border into Greece. Greek officials, no friends of the Turks, allowed him to return to America, and publishers were after him to write a book.
Billy and I conversed easily, and we knew that we would make a good team for the project. That settled, Julian got back on the phone. He said, “Now I know that you have the credentials to write this book. You wrote several books on the Danish resistance when you lived in Europe, right?” I told Julian that he must be thinking of a different person, but by then it was too late. Billy and I were now partners.
The book was called Midnight Express. It became a New York Times bestseller and an Academy Award-winning motion picture. And my phone began to ring frequently.
For more information about “In Your Facebook,” please visit http://williamandmarilynhoffer.com
