C.J. Box writes:
Open Season, then titled Joe Pickett after my game warden protagonist, was completed in manuscript form four years before it was acquired by Putnam. In the four years between completion and sale, an agent was supposedly showing it around, but I never really confirmed that. For an entire year I heard nothing, and for good reason: he died. No one told me.
My then-and-current editor overheard a (living) agent talking about Open Season in a bar during a writer’s conference. She asked the agent for a look at the manuscript. Before leaving the publishing industry for good to seek honest employment, the agent passed along the inquiry to me.
Of course, previous to this, I had written three full unpublished novels and an unfilmed screenplay. My children did not know I wrote because I didn't want them to think of their dad as a failed novelist. They didn't know I wrote fiction until I had a book contract.
Just your typical 20-year overnight success story.
C.J. Box's extraordinary debut novel, Open Season, won just about every accolade out there, including the coveted Gumshoe Award. He has since written 3 additional novels featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett, the most recent of which, Out of Range, will be released this May.
