MetaChat - A mystery within a mystery.

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26 December 2006

A mystery within a mystery. Back in April I purchased a bunch of books at the Strand in NYC. One of them contained a bit of a mystery.→[More:]
The book is Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard. I enjoyed the movie (the phrase "the Cadillac of minivans" stays with me to this day) so I figured I'd enjoy the book, too. But this book had more than Elmore's prose in it. The inside leaf contains the name "Julie Green" and the title page is enscribed "With love, Xmas 1990. Dick." So far, pretty normal. But between pages 66 and 67 is a piece of A Current Affair notepaper, dated "January 1st, 1991" bearing the following:

You were right and I was wrong. Happy now?
R.J. McWilliams

Is R.J. also Dick? What happened that Christmas that made New Year's seem so unhappy? Did Julie even read it?

post by: tommasz at: 18:27 | 7 comments

You're not seeing the real mystery here: someone out there actually liked A Current Affair enough to use branded notepaper? I'd be less ashamed to admit that I made my living by conning kind elderly ladies out of the pension.

posted by cmonkey 26 December | 18:36

Wow.

posted by youngergirl44 26 December | 18:37

That's cool. But aside from the "A Current Affair" notepaper, who would give an Elmore Leonard book "with love"? I guess the burning question is if it is hardbound, paperback, or that inbetween artsy softbound version...

posted by eekacat 26 December | 19:54

I bought a copy of Vonnegut's Jailbird years ago (maybe 1998; maybe some wonderful little now-defunct bookstore in High Point, NC). Inside, there was a dessicated, blue slip of paper, on which was typed (in Courier font): MY NAME IS DIANE BEHAN. IF I AM IN TROUBLE PLEASE CALL [phone # from a NH area code]. The piece of paper was brittle, the edition of the book was a printing from 1977. Hours of Googling has not satisfied my curiosity about this creepy little note.

posted by mac774 26 December | 19:59

IMDB shows a Rob McWilliams worked as a cameraman on the TV gossip show "Inside Edition" in 1991. Maybe he worked on "A Current Affair" before that.

posted by PlanetKyoto 26 December | 20:19

eekacat, it's a hardcover. Not sure if it was ever read either, it's in perfect condition.

posted by tommasz 27 December | 12:48

mac: How could you not call and find out? I would have called...from a pay phone...

posted by bingo 27 December | 13:09

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