It’s official:  my final book cover has been redesigned to move the word “Sportscaster” so that it is no longer covering my father’s eyes. It seems that, as first impressions go, some people thought this was a printing error. It was not an error. It was a designer’s artistic rendering, meant to convey how my father was blinded by his fame. Ot stopped seeing me. Or that something was not quite right. All would be true. Early reviewers interpreted it as something sinister, and I hated that connotation. Sinister is too strong a word for my father’s and my family’s struggles.  I also was sad: this photo was taken in 1980 from a happier time in my life and when my father and I were close. I had felt that the picture had somehow been tainted, but I had to defer to my publisher’s more experienced eye. I was also assuaged that the full picture was reproduced on the inside cover.

The same could be said of the book’s title as well. The original title was Cracks in the Sidewalk, for the past five years.  My original book cover mock up showed a man drawing a heart in a freshly poured sidewalk, a little girl riding her bike on the same sidewalk. To understand the significance of this, you will have to read chapter 1, Digging for Baby Clams, and chapter 25, Going Home.   In the meantime, here is the photo from that symbolic cracked sidewalk.

So personally, I’m glad the cover has been changed, even if it is at the eleventh hour. The book is now at the printer, due out end of August. It would be worse if someone say, at Barnes and Noble, sent all the books back based on the cover. I heard from my publicist that this was the case with one of her clients– 25,000 books trashed over the cover design. Yikes!

Regards,

Cindi