Welcome to FAQs. I’m periodically asked specific questions about my books by readers and reading groups. Although it’s sometimes difficult for me to respond personally to all such inquiries, certain questions and themes seem to re-occur. This forum will give readers an opportunity to ask me questions, or to seek answers to questions which may already have been posted. I thank you all for your interest in my work, and for taking the time to post your guestbook messages, and your questions. Jim Fergus Email your questions to Jim at: Jim@JimFergus.com Q: Why do I find a book titled The Last Apache Girl with the same story as The Wild Girl? A: The Last Apache Girl is the UK edition (published by Pan McMillan) of The Wild Girl. Same book, different title. Q: Why do you believe French readers have purchased 400,000 copies of Milles Femmes Blanches while US readers just 250,000 of One Thousand White Women? I'm really curious about your thoughts on the cultural implication of this statistic. -—Charlene Wilson A: That's an interesting question, Charlene, and one that I've thought a great deal about. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I know the answer. The success of novels is always a somewhat mysterious matter, in any country. I would say, for one thing, that the French are great readers in general, and buy and read far more books per capita than the average American. Considering respective population figures between the two countries, 400,000 copies sold in France (and the number is actually considerably higher than that now) would be equivalent to several million copies here in the U.S. Secondly, the French have always been fascinated by Native American themes and stories. The average Frenchman (and woman) knows more about the subject than most Americans (not that this is saying a great deal!), and they are appalled by the manner in which America has treated its native peoples. Culturally, and this may be a bit inexplicable, they seem to feel a great affinity with Native Americans, and are particularly fascinated by Indian stories that take place in the Great Plains. Being a small country themselves geographically, they love the whole notion of "les grands espaces" — the great open spaces. Beyond that, I think the French readers, and the French critics who also received the book so well, were intrigued by the theme of integration and assimilation of native and white cultures. The French, of course, are a tremendously romantic people by nature, and I think the concept of white women going out to the Great Plains to intermarry with Native American men resonated with them on some purely romantic level. At the same time, the French tend to view Americans as being a rather xenophobic people, and I think they also found interesting the whole political, social and cultural conflict which the exchange portrayed in the novel explored. I hope this somewhat answers your question. And I'd love to hear from French readers on the subject, who might have a better explanation. Q: My book club read The Wild Girl. We discovered the Hyperion paperback version does not include the prologue nor the epilogue!!! What's up with that? --Beth Good question, Beth. I was wondering when someone would notice that. Actually, other book clubs in which some members read the paperback and others the hardcover edition of The Wild Girl have pointed this out as well. And here, very frankly, is how that came about: Recently the publishing house, Macmillan, in Great Britain offered to purchase The Wild Girl for publication in that country. However, the editor there who chose the book felt that the prologue and epilogue were incongruous in tone and style to the rest of the novel, and he requested that I allow him to cut those chapters in the British edition. After some consideration, I agreed, a decision reached for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I make my living as a writer and a foreign sale is a foreign sale; the fact is I’d rather be published in Great Britain than not. In addition, I myself had some reservations about the prologue and epilogue. I wrote The Wild Girl at a rather difficult personal time in my own life, and in retrospect the fate of my narrator, Ned Giles’ seemed somewhat bleak. At the same time, creatively I had some regrets for not having followed Hemingway’s old dictum about only revealing the tip of the iceberg, while allowing the reader to extrapolate what lay beneath the surface. Not to compare myself in any way to such a grand American master, but Hemingway himself, by nature, tended to want to wrap up all loose ends in the endings of his novels, telling the reader more than he or she needed to know. Only his canny editor, Maxwell Perkins prevented him from doing so, encouraging him to end his novels where they should end. After hearing from the editor at Macmillan in Great Britain, I discussed this matter at some length with my American editor at Hyperion press. We decided to re-edit the paperback edition of the novel, dropping the prologue and epilogue. Do I have mixed feelings about this decision? Yes, of course. On the one hand, the original version of the novel was my original vision for it. On the other, I felt some great relief in allowing the reader, and myself, to imagine a better end for Ned, a happier and more successful future. Although we are certainly not able to rewrite our own lives, as the “god” of the fictional world I create, I can do so in my novels. In the paperback edition of The Wild Girl we leave Ned’s future to the reader’s imagination, and we leave open for him the possibility of salvation. Perhaps he seizes it.