Books

After years of struggling as a writer in 1990s New York City, James Smale finally gets his big break when his novel sells to an editor at a major publishing house: none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.Jackie, or Mrs. Onassis as she’s known in the office, loves James’s candidly autobiographical novel, about his own dysfunctional family.

As Jackie and James develop an unexpected friendship, she pushes him to write an authentic ending, encouraging him to confront the truth about his relationship with his mother. But when a long-held family secret is revealed, he realises his editor may have had a larger plan that goes beyond the page…

Praise for The Editor

‘Delicately observed’ – Sunday Times

‘Laugh-out-loud funny and searingly poignant.’ – Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Daisy Jones and the Six

‘Told with warmth and humour, Steven Rowley’s charming second novel tells the story of a mother-son reconciliation, facilitated by a most unlikely fairy godmother. The Editor offers a delightful fictional glimpse of an iconic American family – but it is, at heart, a tribute to every family whose last name isn’t Kennedy’ – Chloe Benjamin, author of The Immortalists

‘Filled with whimsy and warmth, centers on the complex relationship between a fledgling writer and his fabulous editor. Oh, and she happens to be Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, but that’s Mrs. Onassis to you’ – O, The Oprah Magazine