Sunday, October 24, 2010

Whence the editor?

What does it do to you, Dear Gentle Reader(s), when you run across a possible editing error on the first page of a new book?

For instance, on the first page (not numbered—what’s that about?) of the narrative of Red Rain, by Bruce Murkoff, published by Knopf, you will find, in the middle of the second paragraph, this sentence:  “Now, as the sky began to lighten, the stars faded away and the moon moved eastward.”

When does the moon move eastward?  What time of the year?  Here, in California, the recent full moon has been rising in the east and setting in the west.  Is it different in New York’s Hudson River area, the scene of the first page?

Does, perhaps, the moon seem to move eastward while sailing up the Hudson? 

How much money did Murkoff or Knopf pay whoever edited this book?

We might never know.

There’s no editor in the acknowledgement paragraphs.

Hmmm.

Perhaps I just answered my own question.

Alas.

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