Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or maybe on the moon, you’ve heard that a civilian expedition led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has found the wreckage of the USS Indianapolis, seventy-two years after it was torpedoed and sunk in the south Pacific. Unless you’ve been living on another planet, you know that the Indianapolis was instrumental in the US victory in World War II, having delivered parts of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima to Tinian Island. The Indianapolis was en route to the Phillippines when it was sunk.
Back in 1994, Berkley published my novel, Luck of the Draw, part of which took place during World War II. A pivotal scene in the novel was set aboard the Indianapolis, where my protagonist met a young man from an affluent background, Spencer Randall. Spencer didn’t survive the attack, but Frankie, a rough young man from Chicago, did. Frankie was found with Spencer’s dog tags. Long story short, he assumed Spencer Randall’s identity and returned to the US to build a financial empire.
Why am I bringing this up now? I recently decided not to reissue all of my backlist. I’d changed as a writer. The glitz and glamour of my previous writing identity was no longer me. Would reissuing those old books help or hurt my new books’ sales? I’ll never know. For one thing, I haven’t published anything new since 2009. Anyway, Luck of the Draw was one of the books that didn’t make the cut. Would the discovery of the Indianapolis now help that book’s sales? Who knows.
I’m still kicking myself….
Norma Beishir/Collin Beishir 