joanna, Author at JOANNA ELM, Author, Journalist, Attorney

Rest In Peace: Beloved Husband, Joe, 1936-2023

Joe, the love of my life, my beloved husband of 36 years, passed away on Tuesday, June 6. He was 86.

The worst day of my life was also the 79th anniversary of D-Day. Joe knew how to pick his moments. The day he lost the tip of his finger in a beach chair accident on Ponquogue Beach in the Hamptons was also the day Princess Diana lost her life in Paris.

I mention this only because when he lost the tip of his finger, and paramedics raced him and the finger tip to the hospital, he later said to me: “I’m happy it was me not you. That was such excruciating pain I’m not sure if you could have stood it.” That’s the kind of husband Joe was. He never thought of himself first. If he could protect me from any hurt or pain, physical or emotional, he always did.

One of my most favorite photos: on our boat, the Mirage, off the coast of Florida c1991

Joe loved life. He lived it to the fullest. He loved to have fun; he had a great sense of humor and loved to tell stories. His generosity and love for me allowed me to live my best life, too. When my new thriller, Fool Her Once, was going through its last-stage edits in the Fall of 2021, I was asked to write my acknowledgments page; also to provide some answers for an Author Q&A. The acknowledgments page was easy. Joe was always the first one mentioned in all my novels.

In FHO, I wrote : “I am indebted to my husband Joe, my rock, and my #1 fan. He has encouraged and supported me in everything I ever wanted to achieve. I couldn’t wish or hope for —or even dream up— a better partner.” The question that had me stumped momentarily for the Author Q&A was: What is your superpower?

As always when I’m stumped, I went to Joe and asked: What do you think my superpower is?”Joe laughed cheekily: “That would be me. I’m your superpower,” he said. I didn’t even have to think twice about his response. “Of course you are,” I said. “Of course.” And, I felt a little foolish that I‘d even had to ask.

Joe enabled my wildest dreams, and made them come true. He encouraged me to finish my first thriller (Scandal) in 1996. He found me my first agent. My first agent placed Scandal with a publisher almost overnight. With Joe’s marketing help and contacts in publishing, Scandal, as an original paperback, sold more than 70,000 copies.

Joe never, ever tried to talk me out of anything I wanted to do. Whether it was my attempts to write my first novel –or my ambition to go to law school at the advanced age of 50. He had more confidence in my abilities than I had.

“Every Woman Needs A Joe”

He was the do-er in our marriage: he knew how to fix anything and everything around the house; you’d never find him sitting or lounging around relaxing in the days when he was still fit. He’d always find something to do whether it was fixing a squeaky screen door, or running down to the local hardware store for more bird feed or picking up plants for the backyard which he’d then re-pot, or taking the cars to the car wash on a Saturday morning.

Or he’d drive to our fabulous local fish market to pick up flounder or shrimp or salmon for a home-cooked lunch, or to pick up our takeouts when I was working on the last-minute edits on FHO.

It seemed like he could never do enough for me and our home. One summer, he had boxwoods planted to camouflage the pool heater propane tanks because he knew it bothered me to see them from the kitchen windows. A mutual friend of 20 years said back then: “ Every woman needs a Joe.”

Our wedding day, City Hall, NYC, April 24. 1987

I was lucky enough to be the only woman who had the one and only Joe. He was unique, special. We met at Star Magazine in New York City. He was 50, and the general manager/ circulation director of Star, about to be Vice-President of Murdoch Magazines which launched and acquired some dozen magazines during Joe’s tenure.

I was 37, and the news editor of the Star. We fell madly in love and got married in City Hall, NYC in April, 1987. As advanced in age as we both were, Joe said we should have a baby. He said: “I know I’m going to go before you do. I don’t want you to be alone. I want you to have someone who will be there for you when I’m gone.”

Daniel, our son, was with me at Joe’s side when Joe passed away at Peconic Bay Medical Center, on the East End of Long Island on June 6. Together with his partner Adrienne, he has not left my side since then. As Dan said the other day : “I’m finally fulfilling my purpose.”

Travels With Joe

Joe and I travelled a lot in the early days, and then, with Danny when he was old enough. We skied Hunter Mountain, New York, Sunday River in Maine and Copper Mountain in Colorado. We travelled to Aspen. Joe was a reckless, double black diamond skier.

We sailed around the islands of the Caribbean on the Royal Clipper, a five-masted schooner. We loved it so much, we sailed on the Clipper again and again. We sailed on our own boat, the Mirage, named after the hotel/casino where we won the $28,000 (in one night of blackjack) that paid for the boat. Joe was a self-taught sailor who read one how-to book about sailing before buying a boat and sailing it on weekends on Barnegat Bay.

Joe at the helm of Mirage in South Florida

We traveled to Europe often because of business conventions Joe had to attend. We visited all the fun cities: Monte Carlo, London, St. Tropez, Paris, Madrid, Helsinki and Vancouver. We made so many memories together.

Moving

We seemed always to be on the move. We moved from Brewster, New York where we built our first house, to a Philadelphia town house in Center City to a sprawling mansion in Boca Raton, back to New York ( Long Island) and then eventually to Hampton Bays and West Palm Beach where Joe started spending winters in the sun while I was still working as a law clerk.

When the judge I worked for lost re-election, Joe suggested I retire and spend winters in the sun with him. He loved lunching at the Breakers Ocean Club in Palm Beach where we were members. He was also known for making the best Bloody Marys for his buddies at the pool of the condo complex where we lived on the Intracoastal.

At The Colony Hotel, Palm Beach March 2023

He said if I couldn’t enjoy just lounging around, playing tennis, golf, and swimming, then I could write another book. Which I did. It took a lot of time. Longer than I thought it would. But, as always throughout our life together, Joe never complained when I spent time on my writing or any of the activities associated with it.

Always Generous

He was generous —to a fault —with his time, and his money. He enjoyed spending his money on friends and family — especially on his children and grandchildren. He bought a house in Philadelphia for my mother and stepfather when they moved from the UK so they could be closer to Danny, their only grandson.

He helped strangers who were in need. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ve probably seen this one about his effort to bring supplies to the babies and kids of Homestead after Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida.

Illustrious Career

In the couple of years since the 2020 pandemic, Joe became frailer and frailer. COPD was making his life more difficult; he couldn’t move with ease anymore. He had issues with his hearing, and macular degeneration destroyed the eyesight in his left eye. A touch of old age forgetfulness, robbed him of some memory and sometimes everyday vocabulary.

Joe enjoying one of my research trips, motoring around Peconic Bay

His storytelling abilities turned to a reliance on memories from decades before : He remembered how he he’d become an underage lifeguard in Wildwood, New Jersey; how he signed up to serve his country and got stationed with the US Air Force in Limestone, Maine where he remembered the “brutally cold” winters; and how as a college graduate without a job and working as a bartender, he was hired from behind the bar at the Treadway Inn on the Main Line to work as a sales rep for TV Guide.

It was the start of an illustrious career that set him on a path to the very top of the newspaper and magazine publishing industry. It took Joe from TV Guide in Radnor, Pennsylvania to Star Magazine in New York where he became General Manager/Circulation Director, and eventually Vice-President of Murdoch Magazines.

“Icon” & “Legend” in Magazine Publishing

During his time with publisher Murdoch, he was instrumental in helping the company launch and acquire about a dozen magazines with titles like Soap Opera Weekly, Mirabella, Premiere, New Woman, Seventeen and Automobile magazine. The company also acquired TV Guide to which Joe returned in 1989 —with a much loftier title.

Covers generated in honor of Joe when he announced his move from Murdoch Magazines

When Joe later accepted the position of Chairman at Globe Magazine, we moved to Boca Raton, but subsequently returned to New York where Joe became Executive Vice President of Magazine Distributors Inc., then, President & CEO of Worldwide Media Service Inc. On retirement, he became a partner/owner in a Tri-State area newspaper and magazine distribution company.

Last flight home to New York from Palm Beach

Former colleagues who heard of Joe’s passing last week described him as an “icon” and a “legend” in the magazine publishing industry.

Leaving Me

Joe leaves me, our son, Daniel, and three children from a previous marriage: Sean, Pamela and Joseph . Also, five grandchildren: Heather, Trevor, Kiel, Shannon and Jack, and one great grandson, Noah.

Joe was laid to rest on Saturday, June 10, in a very simple, private service. A funeral mass was held for him at the church he attended almost daily since his retirement. It’s the one thing he told me he wanted when he was gone.

He also had an honor guard from the U.S. Air Force. I was presented with the flag that was draped over his coffin. Joe would have appreciated that immensely.

The Future

I’ve missed him every day since his passing. His was the first, kind, loving face I saw each and every morning, and the last kind, loving face I saw each and every night. It was the face I saw when I rolled over in bed on recent mornings when the light of day started creeping in around 5 a.m.

I will miss him for the love with which he showered me, and expressed to me every day to the end —even when other words and thoughts were failing him.

He was my husband, my lover, my soulmate, father of our only son, companion on our best adventures, enabler of my wildest dreams — and my very best friend.

I will miss him to the end of my days.

Rest in Peace, Joe, love of my life, October 28, 1936 – June 6, 2023

Protected: Fool Her Once Bonus Chapters: The Original Ending I Had To Delete

What You Need To Know About TV’s “Succession” Finale & Writing The Perfect Ending

Endings are tricky. Any author or screenwriter can tell you that. Endings for a TV series like Succession which engaged millions of viewers are especially tricky. Jesse Armstrong, the head writer of the 4-season drama series about a media conglomerate run by a Rupert Murdoch-type billionaire knows that only too well.

After last Sunday’s finale, hundreds of viewers and reviewers weighed in about that series ending, voicing their opinions and criticisms in the mainstream media as well as on entertainment websites and blogs.

Authors of novels are perhaps more fortunate in that millions of readers are not usually specifically primed for the ending of their book in the same way that viewers are primed for the finale of a wildly popular TV series like Succession or The Sopranos or Game of Thrones. Which doesn’t mean authors don’t struggle to come up with the perfect ending. Especially in mysteries and thrillers which often depend on a jaw-dropping revelation. I know. I struggled with the ending of my thriller, Fool Her Once.

Fool Her Once Original Ending

More on book endings below including my offer of making my original ending available as two freebie, bonus chapters. These are the last two chapters of FHO which were deleted and re-written upon my editor’s advice. You may scroll down to the end of this blog for details on how to access those original FHO deleted chapters. But first:

Was Succession Finale A Perfect Ending?

Succession cast and writers as winners at the Emmys. Credit photo: People Magazine

Spoiler Alert for those who have not yet viewed the finale: There were predictions and guesses flying around the week before the finale aired as to who would emerge as the successor to Logan Roy; who would end up running his media conglomerate, Waystar Royco?

Would it be one of his four ( “not serious”) children, or would it be an outsider? My son, Dan and Adrienne, his partner, predicted correctly that it would be Tom –husband of Logan’s only daughter, Shiv — with cousin Greg continuing to bask in Tom’s orbit as his fawning acolyte. It made sense.

Tom was the striver who had come from nothing; the worker bee; the one who had shown the greatest loyalty to the company and Logan Roy. He deserved it. If you were rooting for Tom, the ending was more than satisfying. It was near-perfect.

I, on the other hand, was rooting for Shiv. Yes, solely because of her gender and not because I thought she was smarter or more competent. I didn’t. But I felt that the show should, at least, give a nod to the idea of a boss girl. And, in a sly way, I think it did.

For one, it was Shiv who had the deciding vote at the final boardroom meeting where she changed her mind about voting with her brothers and instead threw in her lot with Matsson and GoJo. The future of Waystar Royco in that moment was entirely in her hands. And she exercised that power to her advantage.

I Would Have Done The Same Thing

Like Shiv, I would have calculated that (1) I already had an “in” with Matsson, as a confidant, an object of his lust – and at one stage his pick for the top job at Waystar Royco when he took over the company. I could see Shiv using her past with Matsson to worm her way back into the #1 spot as soon as Tom falls out of favor –which he is almost certain to do with the mercurial Matsson

Also (2) her decision to stay with Tom was, I think, driven by the same motive, and not because she’d been left diminished and without any other choice. She returned with Tom to their apartment/home, because she knew that would put her in the best possible position to influence events and decisions in the company.

Shiv has always been able to intimidate Tom and keep him off balance and to use his feelings for her to her advantage. Her exit with Tom in his car was, in fact, the perfect ending because it also showed that Tom was very aware that his fate would be in Shiv’s hands, again, one day.

The finale did what a perfect ending has to do. It doesn’t have to be happy but it has to be satisfying. Loose ends have to be tied; plot points have to be resolved; the protagonists and antagonists must come face to face for a final showdown. Also, the writer/writers must provide enough foreshadowing to give the viewer a sense of : Oh, yes, now I get it. I should have seen that coming.

Scorpion Foreshadowing

In Succession, there was significant foreshadowing in the scene where Tom gifted Shiv with a glass scorpion paperweight, and told her she was the scorpion. Their final scene together in the car unmistakably references the fable of the scorpion and the frog when Tom offers Shiv his hand, palm up, and she covers it with her hand.

Never mind the Neil Diamond’s lyrics that spring to mind about Tom (“did you every read about the frog who dreamed of being a king,”) the fable is about a scorpion who hitches a ride across a river on a frog’s back. As they’re nearing the opposite bank, the scorpion stings the frog. As the frog is dying and the scorpion is sinking with him, the frog asks why? The scorpion replies : Because it’s my nature and you knew that when you offered to give me the ride. It really doesn’t get more obvious than that — unless you’ve forgotten the fables from your childhood.

In The Writers’ Room

Jesse Armstrong, head writer Credit Photo: Leonardo Cendamo/Getty Images

Jesse Armstrong, creator and head writer talked about the show’s finale after the last episode aired last Sunday. He said he’d “known for a while” that Tom would emerge as the successor in the end. He did not explain how he’d decided on that finale, or if there had been much discussion about it with the show’s other writers.

But he has also spoken recently about the advantages of collaboration in writing a show like Succession: “Working together in a writers’ room had one big advantage in fixing problems,” he said at the BBC Comedy Festival. “If you’re on your own, it can take a week, whereas if you’ve got a room, hopefully, for six people who are downcast there’s one person who sees a way through.”

Different For Authors

That’s not quite how it works for authors of novels. An author generally labors over the ending on his/her own. Reportedly, Ernest Hemingway re-wrote the ending of Farewell To Arms 39 times before he was ready to show it to his editor.

Other times, an author will produce an entire outline or synopsis including the ending for his/her agent or editor. A re-work might happen at this point if an agent or editor has other ideas.

Or an author may complete the manuscript and be set on having a specific ending which an agent/editor may not like, or may not think it’s the right ending for the book. British author, Lisa Jewell has written about the major change she had to make to Then She Was Gone after her editor contacted her and told her the book couldn’t have a happy ending. Her psychological thriller went on to become a major bestseller.

Fool Her Once: My Original Ending

In the case of my thriller, FHO, I had a pretty strong idea about how to end it. I knew the antagonist had to be punished, in fact, that he had to die. What he had done to protagonist Jenna was far too devious and evil to be overlooked or forgiven. Hence, in my original ending, it was Jenna who decided to take matters into her own hands to punish him. I wanted Jenna to consciously decide and execute her plan for the antagonist’s sorry end.

Once my manuscript was in the hands of my publisher and editor, however, different ideas emerged. I touched on why I had to change my ending in an earlier blog. My editor’s main objection was that the antagonist was too smart to fall for protagonist’s scheme to entrap and destroy him. Once, that idea was planted in my head, I agreed to revise.

In the revised ending, therefore, Jenna’s final act against the antagonist was, in effect, a reaction to antagonist’s one last attempt to silence her rather than an act of her own agency. But, I think it was as powerful as the original ending, if not a tad more so!

If you’ve read FHO and would like to read my original two-chapter ending — or even if you haven’t read it yet but it’s on your TBR list —all you have to do to get the bonus freebie chapters is to email me using the contact form below.

Write: Password Please as the subject line and I will then email you the password for the protected blog where I’ve reprinted my original two final chapters. Please circle back to me to let me now what you think.

Happy Reading.

Why Today I’m Remembering The World War We Fought Against A Fascist Nazi Madman

Memorial Day: It’s a day of BBQs and dipping your toe in the not-quite-warm-enough pool, and looking around to see everything busting out in glorious technicolor. It’s also the day when we pause to remember— and honor- those of our parents and grandparents who fought wars to protect the freedoms enshrined in our democracy.

In the U.K. it’s a day in November, called Remembrance Sunday. In Warsaw, Poland, Poles commemorate the heroes of the 1944 Warsaw Rising on August 1 at 5p.m. when everyone and everything in the city comes to a total standstill for one minute. Continue reading “Why Today I’m Remembering The World War We Fought Against A Fascist Nazi Madman”

Guns N’ Death (No Roses): That Was A Mother’s Day Message From Governor Ron

While I was enjoying my Mother’s Day in New York this weekend, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, aka Meatball Ron, was in Iowa, delivering a deadly message to moms.

Author: joanna