A nice mention for Defending Jacob on this morning’s Today Show. Thank you, Charlaine Harris. (This is just a brief 60-second clip. You can watch the whole segment here.)
Also this week, Amazon included Defending Jacob on its list of the best books of 2012 so far. Not a bad week.
On the page titled Part Three, it has a quote. According to the book, the quote was said by John F Watkins…. That is INCORRECT, it was said by John B Watson .
You’re right, Geri. The epigraph is an adaptation, not a direct quote, from Watson’s famous “twelve infants” quote. The reason it was lightly fictionalized this way is that I did not want the reader’s mind to go scurrying off after Watson’s sometimes controversial ideas on behaviorism. I simply wanted to touch on the idea and move quickly back into the story. Obviously only a tiny minority of readers would have been distracted by the reference to Watson, but I wanted 100% of my readers to have an uninterrupted reading experience. A few readers — but only a few — have been distracted by this epigraph, but then there was no solution that would have worked for 100% of my readers. I chose the strategy that seemed to have the best chance of success.
By the way, all three epigraphs in Defending Jacob are fictional, though I have had several inquiries asking for help in locating the original sources.
Thanks for commenting, Geri.
Just finished reading “Defending Jacob”. Sorry, Bill, but your reply to Geri smacks of the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty. Imagine the shoe on the other foot. Someone appropriates your ideas and intellectual property, simply paraphrases them (‘adapts’ in your words), attributes them to a fictional source, and justifies it by saying, “I did not want the reader’s mind to go scurrying off”. Your attorneys, agents, etc., would be all over them. John B. Watson deserves better, and you should come clean and correct this injustice.