Dave and Joe

Dave and Joe (1989) Post 243

Dave and Joe is, like Country Girl, (May 8th)  a story of time, change and friendship. In this one, Dave is a truckie raising his daughter Katharine alone since his wife died. Katharine wants a pet, but Dave is allergic to cats and dogs. After some thought, he gets her a pony. Katharine is to take full responsibility of Mallowfield Josephina's Supreme, or Joe as he's called, and so she does, with support from Dave. As Katharine grows older, she has less time for Joe, so it's Dave who keeps the pony company. Katharine marries, and Dave decides to sell Joe... but things don't quite work out. By the end of the story, Joe is in his thirties and Dave is retired, and we leave them reflecting on their long and happy association.

Dave and Joe is one of those curious limbo books. It was contracted and published, but never distributed, and although I have a copy I doubt if anyone else has. It shoes up just once on the internet aside from its listing in my own website. The affair of the publication without distribution is a long and messy one but although it seemed bad at the time, years later I've known several other cases that were similar... In Dave and Joe another book of mine is advertised. That one is called Borderline. It was contracted but never published. I was supposed to get the disc back from the published but it never happened and so I doubt if any copy of the ms exists. A third one was called Kingdom Quest.

ABOUT THE BLOG

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. If you enjoyed a post, or want to ask about any of my books or my manuscript assessment service.