Letters to Jenny (38 page)

Meanwhile some enclosures. Remember when Penny was here with her adopted cat? Well, here’s a picture of him pretending he’s Sammy, snoozing on the VCR. And here’s Curtis, and Mother Goose & Grimm, because, well, see for yourself. And The Far Side, because I just don’t get it, and thought maybe you could figure it out. And a horse card drawn by another correspondent. Folk think that the pencil isn’t an artistic medium, but they’re wrong, as this card shows. And finally an article for your mother, from a British newsmagazine: they are learning how to make the nerves of the brain and spinal cord grow back. This may be a number of years away for human beings, but it could be very significant for you one day, if it works. And a current biblio for your mother.

So keep perking along, Jenny, and we’ll see what the next year has in store.

Author’s Note

It was an arbitrary decision, cutting this collection off at the end of one year, but there was too much for one volume. I continued to write to Jenny every week, about a thousand words a letter, so that as this is published there is another volume’s worth of material, continuing to grow. I did not write to Jenny with the intention of publishing it; that was a later thought. Perhaps I would have been more circumspect about certain matters, had I realized. This was essentially a closed correspondence, one on one, though of course there were always others in the circuit. Part of the humor of it is in my cautioning “Don’t tell your mother,” when it might be her mother reading Jenny the letter. Fortunately Jenny’s mother was happy to be teased, if it made Jenny smile. Now there will be thousands of others reading these letters. Well, all of you can help keep our secrets. At this writing I do not know whether more of these letters will be published; that may depend on the nature of the response.

No letters from Jenny are included here. This is because there really weren’t any. Jenny simply could not write well, even with her good hand. Now, as she is computerized, she can do better, but her energy is taken up with school work and therapy and the hassle of simply surviving with her paralysis. So this is really a one-way correspondence, with a phantom Jenny reacting as I go along. However, her mother does call periodically, updating me on Jenny events and letting me know how she reacts. My guess is that she responds in much the way I suggest she does in the letters, laughing, being mad, getting bored, and in general enjoying it. That is after all the point: to see that she continues to make progress toward life and satisfaction.

Jenny’s progress continues. Every so often she returns to Cumbersome Hospital for more therapy; she goes there not because of problems but to improve her performance. Thus hospitalization is good news, not bad news. She had further surgery on her jaw to facilitate speech, though her verbal vocabulary remains quite limited, and surgery on her legs to enable her to stand and even walk, with a walker. Once a young man lifted her so she could actually dance with him. But such events are exceptional; she still has miles to go. She is getting better using her right hand, but her left side lags. So she is bed-and wheelchair-bound, and largely dependent on the help of others, though she is doing more for herself, such as taking her own showers.

Meanwhile, the drunken driver who hit her paid no meaningful penalty I know of, not even remorse. He was given a suspended sentence in criminal court, and the state of Virginia has a “one per cent” rule that effectively prevents a civil settlement unless the victim can prove she was not even one per cent at fault—something virtually impossible to do. Fortunately Jenny’s family has excellent insurance, so that it was possible for her to survive and recover to what extent the fates decree. I have a harsh opinion of the leniency with which drunken drivers are treated, and of the way the system seems designed to protect them at the expense of their victims.

When I ran Jenny’s address in
Isle of View
the mail poured in. Her mother lost count after reporting about two thousand letters. There was no promise to answer them, but they did try, and many did get answered. Certainly that tremendous outpouring of support—as far as I know, there were no negative letters—buoyed Jenny, showing her how much how many of you cared. Some led to remarkable things, such as the naming of an Iris after Jenny Elf. Some were touching; one woman reported that she laughed through the novel, and cried through the Author’s Note. We have heard from some who had similar experience to Jenny’s, even to the impunity of the reckless drivers.

Now I am running her address again, not to solicit more mail, but because I’ve had a good deal of experience with fan letters, these days answering about a hundred and fifty a month myself, and I know that if folk can’t reach Jenny directly, they will simply write to her in care of me, requiring me to forward them. So I remind you that neither Jenny nor I guarantee to answer letters, though we do read them, and if you wish to reach Jenny, her address is JENNY ELF, PO BOX 8152, HAMPTON VA 23666–8152. The easiest way to reach me is to call my “troll-free” hotline, 1–800 HI PIERS. This is a marketing service for all my titles and my personal newsletter, and they will forward letters to me, though this can take time. But I encourage you simply to appreciate this book in your fashion and go on to the next; you have no obligation to write.

Jenny Elf continues as a character in Xanth, appearing in
Isle of View, The Color of Her Panties, Demons Don’t Dream
, and perhaps future novels. Her likeness is in the graphic adaptation of
Isle of View
, “Return To Centaur,” which had difficulties with distribution so is hard to find, but remains available via HI PIERS. She also appears in a Xanth calendar, but this series too had distribution problems, and the one with her has not yet been published. And—oh, yes—Jenny and I share the cover of this book. Jenny, we have to stop meeting this way!

I had to make an ethical decision about this volume. Most of it I wrote, and normally it is the writer who gets the royalties from published books. I could have written a book in the time I diverted to write to Jenny; indeed, this book is the proof of it. But the letters would not have been written without Jenny’s misfortune, and would not have been published without the agreement of her family. It did not seem right to keep all the money myself, but neither did I want to establish a principle of giving away what I earn. So I pondered, and compromised: I take most of it, but some goes to Jenny. I’m tithing it: sending one tenth to Jenny, just as the publisher is tithing the cover price of the book for my royalty. So for each dollar you pay for the book, a penny will go to my literary agent, a penny to Jenny, and eight cents to me. The rest goes to the booksellers, distributors, publishers, printers and so on: the complicated machine that is Parnassus. Should the book be wildly successful, those could become significant figures. But that was never the point. I simply did what I had to do, and that was to follow up and make sure that the life I helped recover was worthwhile. As I said when I met Jenny at the convention, a person who saves the life of another may thereafter be responsible for that other. Perhaps this falls under the heading of “Compassion.”

This is an unusual book, even for me. It tells somewhat more about me than I ordinarily prefer to let my readers know, because I thought it was just between Jenny and me. Parts of it may prove to be embarrassing, and parts may anger some readers. But it is as it had to be.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1993 by Piers Anthony Jacob

ISBN: 978-1-4976-5765-6

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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