Steve Kettmann, the co-author of Letter to a New President: Commonsense Lessons for Our Next Leader, writes about the strangeness of ghost-writing and the very peculiar life of a ghost-writer.

August 22, 2008:
Ghosting

There are kids who hope they will grow up to be commodities traders or termite inspectors, garbage men or janitors; even a few who want to be plumbers or proctologists. I'd be willing to bet, however, that not a single person anywhere has ever — EVER! — grown up dreaming of one day becoming a ghost-writer. That goes for the sons and daughters of ghost-writers — especially the sons and daughters of ghost-writers.

It's admittedly a strange job. People are often both fascinated and repulsed by the work; they see the job of helping another person write a book as somehow underhanded or devious, which I guess it is, in a sense. Deception is part of the job description, but not in a way that seems any more notable than, say, what a good actor does in portraying a famous person's voice on screen, or what Jennifer Jason Leigh did in evoking Dorothy Parker's speaking style in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. The questions are the same: Which parts are the actor? And which parts the famous person?

As my friend the author Jacob Heilbrunn said, in reference to my most recent book, Letter to a New President, co-written with Senator Robert Byrd, "I'm flummoxed as to how much of it is Kettmann and how much Byrd." The answer, of course, is that in all meaningful ways the book is Byrd, and that the only parts that might feel like Kettmann are really unexpected sides of Byrd that I coaxed out of him in our long conversations together in Washington.

"She ran past us so quickly," Bear recalls now, "we had no idea what to think. This sounds impossible, but I sort of bonded with Bandit right then. I didn't know him, and I didn't know anything about his relationship with Fup, but clearly she wanted no part of either of us, me or Bandit."

Zooey objects. "She did! She loved you!"

"She had a funny way of showing it," Bear replies.

"So just like that, you sided with Bandit over Fup?" Bagheera asks. "No way."

"Fup didn't matter," Bear says, "not right then."

"How can you say that?"

Oreo hazards a guess. "Because you were more concerned with this big German shepherd next to you?"

"Actually," Bear corrects him, "no. Bandit seemed peaceful enough, and the two of us had something really important in common: That Doberman was really pissed off."

"The Doberman!" Bagheera shouts.