Amy Weisburg

When I wrote the first draft years ago, there were two or three "girlfriends" strewn about the narrative, almost haphazardly.  None of them were strongly connected to me—in real life, nor the book. My creative writing teacher, John Livecchi, said, “Ken, why don’t you and your friend just have one girlfriend apiece, and stick with that? Otherwise, it’s too confusing.” That’s how Amy Weisburg was born, and the others dropped.  That’s her real first name; her last name was G________ . She was the daughter of a chiropractor who worked across the street from the high school in Flemington. No composite—my Amy is that Amy. She and I never had a midnight date nestled down next to Raritan River, “necking and munching on cheese doodles,” as it says on page 7, but our handful of dates were strong enough, and sexually charged enough, to make her a real possibility for the future. The fact that she turns down Roger in Epilogue 1 testifies that we weren’t really THAT close, but maybe Roger built her up in his mind in his usual over-confident way. (Amy G. and I had a spurt years later, but that’s another story). When I worked at a factory outlet store in 1979, selling dishware, I worked with a sweet Flemington girl named Amy Weisburg.  I told her, “I’m going to honor you by using your name in my book as the character’s girlfriend,” to which she agreed. So even though there’s a real-life Amy Weisburg, it’s the other Amy who’s in the book.