I wrote about Nagin's book in the middle of May, speculating that it would be a Vanity Press publication. I was right about that, but I had no idea what a treasure trove of humor it would provide.
The first real clue came Monday night when Ray appeared on the Daily Show with John Stewart. Ray said he self-published because he knew that if he turned the book over to a publishing house he would loose control of his work and they would twist and change it.
Ray surely knows that is not how it works; an author maintains control of his work through out the publishing process--if the author doesn't like the changes suggested by his editor, he is free to go elsewhere.
I am sure Ray tried to hawk his book to agents and publishers and they all turned him down. I, mean, Michele Bachman can publish, Bill O'Reilly can, even Sarah Palin can find a publisher. Was Ray's book so bad that no one wanted to touch it? Perhaps, but as I said, even Sarah Palin gets published; of course, she is the darling of the Tea Party and Fox Noise so her commercial appeal is far larger than Ray can ever dream of.
It is too bad, really, for Ray's book is begging for an editor--at least a fact checker. Instead he has given us a book of fantasy, in which he rewrites his and our history of the days following the Federal Flood of New Orleans. It is a very poorly written book full of grammatical and syntactical errors. But there is a glimmer of truth in his writing--he writes about his paranoia in the weeks following the disaster and I am sure he believed every delusion he suffered in those days.
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