An interview with Jennifer Cohen conducted by Andy Miles, September 16, 2004, in the Washington, D.C. home of the author.

AM  Writing the book is one thing, and then having people read it is another. But now that you're going into this process of publicizing the book and talking about it in a very public way, is that a whole different experience that you're adapting to, struggling with?

JC  When I started writing it I didn't think of it as, "Oh, this is going to be a big public thing." I started writing it as a diary for myself. So that's a whole other issue.

When I started to think of it as a book, I guess I didn't really think about in terms of my close friends and family reading it. It was more the world at large, and the world at large I'm anonymous; it doesn't really matter. It matters but it doesn't really matter as intimately as my parents and my family and my friends. And so when we came close to the publication date, I started freaking out — (laughs) — a little too late; the deal was done. And I started thinking, why, why did I do this? Why this book? Why was this my first book? Why did I have to do it?

Aside from all the jokes my father has made — he said he's going into the Witness Protection Program and is going to wear a Groucho Marx nose at the book party — it was really quite wonderful actually.

My mom called me having read it, when she read it. I didn't even know she was reading it. I thought that they were just putting it off and putting it off. And she read the galley, and she called me up and she said: "You're crazy. What were you so worried about? I loved this. This was wonderful." She said, "I know this was your past; I know that your present is so much happier." And it's her past too, and so she can move on from it as well.

And so she was able to read and say this is a story; this is a coming-of-age story. And it has a happy ending. And the fact that it has a happy ending in real life makes it a lot easier for friends and family to read.

Of course for my husband, no, it's not comfortable for him to read intimate scenes about past relationships. And I actually did take a big black sharpie and censored the copy of the book that I gave him. (Laughs.) But he, too — he understands it's the past. He's a big enough man to understand that it's not the present, it's not who I am. It informs who I am, but it's not who I am. So of anyone, I was the one who was most uncomfortable, not the actual people I was concerned about.

AM   Will you talk a little about the [book launch] party? Who was there? Did you consider it a success?

JC  The party was amazing. It blew me away.

First of all, I've only been at the CBS Washington bureau for a little over a year. And I'm not technically a Washington producer; I don't report to any of the people who were throwing me the party.

When I told Janet I had written the book and she said, "Oh, we have to throw you a party," I had no idea that this is what — I thought she meant she'd have some people over to her house for a little wine or something. I was just so blown away.

And it's interesting how people react. I mean, it's, I guess, a really big deal to write a book, and maybe when you're in the process of doing it it somehow stops seeming like such a big deal. You start thinking, well, I didn't get the six-figure advance and I wasn't published by this enormous press, and all of these other things. And then recently, it finally hit me — wait, I actually really accomplished something. It's an amazing feeling, one, to be able to recognize this myself but also to have all these other people recognize it. And maybe that helps me recognize it myself. And it's just incredibly flattering.

AM   Was that process of recognition still taking place as late as the party?

JC   (Laughs.) That process of recognition is still taking place. My first review in a real major paper, not a trade paper, came out in the San Francisco Chronicle, and it was a very positive review. And it was amazing. I mean, it's like, "Wow, it's real; I mean, it's really real. The 11th largest newspaper in the country wrote a review about it, I must be an author." (Laughs.) It's still sort of this "pinch me."

I wonder when I'm going to get to the point where I'm at a cocktail party and someone says, "What do you do?" and I'm not going to say I'm a television producer, I'm going to say instead, "I'm an author." That's going to be the real sign I finally believe that I did this.

AM  And that hasn't happened yet.

JC  No, that hasn't happened yet. It's usually my husband sort of elbowing me, "Tout your book." It's hard for me to do.

AM  And the people who were there [at the party] were largely friends, colleagues, family?

JC  The people who showed up at the party were all invited. It was a pretty good mix of people. And again, since I've only been in D.C. for a year, it was really overwhelming to me that that many people showed up. And it was a mix; it was a mix of people from the CBS news bureau, some of whom I know very well and some who I don't — you know, I pass in the halls. I don't know, maybe they heard there was free vodka, but it was still very nice that they came. (Laughs.)

And then we've made quite a number of really nice friends here and they were all there for me. And I have a writing group that I started here in town; a lot of those people showed up, and it was really wonderful to see them all.

I had a writing group in New York who I wrote the book with. And next week when I do a reading in New York, a lot of them are going to be there. And it's going to be pretty incredible, because I feel like it's partly their book. I couldn't have written this without some of those people.

There's this whole — Hillary Clinton, "it takes a village." For me it really did. In addition to the fact that this was a true story and a painful story, it took a lot of friends and family just to help me get over it. And it took a lot of people to help me believe I could do this. The acknowledgements were the most exciting thing to write.

AM   Is it a long list?

JC  It's a pretty long list, yeah. But it's a really heartfelt list. There are more people that I should have included, but the people who are there, really, I would not be here as a published author if it weren't for them.

AM  Yesterday was the first day of the book's release. Was there anything you did yesterday to make that real?

JC  I was home. I was working from home. And it didn't really hit me. It was just this sort of weird feeling, something's happening. It's sort like an out-of-body experience.

I was up on my roof deck doing yoga, because I was a little wound up and was trying to chill out. And literally, I was in downward dog and my cellphone went off, and I saw that it was my publicist calling and I answered it. And she doesn't call me a lot; we e-mail a lot, but she was calling, so clearly she needed to tell me something.

She told me about the San Francisco Chronicle review, and it pretty much ruined my yoga session — (laughs) — because I was so excited. I mean, you really can't be very Zen in that state. And I came downstairs and I was jumping up and down like a rabbit.

AM  Did she read it to you over the phone?

JC  She read me a little blurb from it and then she e-mailed it to me. I came downstairs and I was jumping up and down, you know, trying to find it online, pulling it up, and e-mailing it as fast as I could to all my friends. It was very exciting.

AM  The events that are taking place to promote the book really begin, in a significant way, beginning, really, Saturday with the appearance on CBS and you've got several days of events in New York. So what are your expectations going into that?

JC  (Laughs.) You know, the funny thing about it is, professionally, I'm in your seat. I'm very used to interviewing people and I'm very used to selecting sound bites. And it is sort of a detriment because I am very aware of what I'm saying. You know, is that a good sound bite? Is that less than 15 seconds? You know, is it tight? Is it concise? Does it make sense? Is it pithy? And I'm trying not to think about that so much because it does make me nervous.

A lot of my friends were like, "Oh, you're in a really good position because you know what they need," and I'm thinking I don't that that's actually true. I think in some ways I'm not.

I mean, I'm not a shy person, but I'm not a person who needs to be the center of attention. I'm very happy to give that to my on-air correspondents and hosts and all of that; it doesn't bother me. And it's strange to suddenly have the chairs switched and having people asking me questions for a change. It's kind of fun; it's becoming more fun the more I do it.

But then I also have the sort of pathetic thought of, "What if he doesn't like me?" (Laughs.) I don't know, it's this sort of pathology I have; I need everyone to like me. And I was thinking this over my six-and-a-half-minute live interview with this man in Dallas, Texas, who I have no idea — I have no idea what he looks like, I don't know how old he is; I know nothing except that he's got this very fast, you know, cadence. I had never listened to the show before. And so it's this weird vacuum. And yet I'm thinking, you know, I hope he likes talking to me. It's crazy. (Laughs.) It's totally crazy.

But at the end I hung up the phone when it was over and it was just strange. I was like, what just happened? But it was good, too, because the next time I'll be a little bit more prepared. There are a few more of those and I'll have a better sense of what to expect. I had no idea what to expect.

AM  Well, in a certain way — and without trying to overanalyze or psychoanalyze this — I wonder if there's just a different person — you know, the author — who kind of shows up and does these interviews. And it's almost — not quite out of body but it's —

JC  It is though. And that's actually a little fear of mine. Granted, there are only so many questions you can ask about this book if you're going to do a very limited interview, and I don't want to keep parroting the same answers, but I kind of have to. It's a very strange position for me to be in to have to be a sales person and to remember this isn't me selling me, it's me selling the book; and they're separate things. And it's hard, especially because the book's a memoir. It's very hard to separate those two.

AM  In terms of professional expectations — from this vantage point, what are they?

JC  God. There are expectations and fantasies. My expectation — I actually don't really have any. It's all wants, desires, hopes.

I'm sort of afraid to say that I expect to sell this many copies, I expect to have this many decent reviews, I expect this, I expect that. I don't. I hope that it does well. I hope I get some nice praise. I hope the numbers are pretty good.

I hope I sell enough books that I can break even because I spent a lot of money myself. I mean, I hired a freelance publicist for a lot of money; silly things, like buying a dress for the party. I've shelled out quite a few dollars. It would be nice to break even. I don't expect to become rich off this.

AM  Was acquiring an agent an additional upfront expense?

JC  No, it's not an upfront — the agent gets a percentage. And I think with my agent in particular — you know, obviously we sold to a small press; there's not a lot of money there at all. We sort of joke, you know, with the royalties we're going to go out and have a latte together.

I'm thinking, my assumption is that for her I'm sort of an investment as well. The hope is there's another book. And assuming this one does well, we can ride on that. You know, we can say, hey, she got these great media hits, she got this great praise, she sold this many books from a small press where it's a lot harder — it's a lot harder to sell a lot of books.

If you're the author with the $500,000 advance that they're going to really invest in, they're going to be able to send you all over the country to so many book stores to do readings and signings and all of these things. And I can't do that. It's all out of my pocket, A; and B, I have a full-time job, and I don't have that many vacation days. I can't do it.

I mean, my job, they're being amazing. CBS, "The Early Show" — I seriously could not ask for better employers. They're being so supportive and so understanding. But yeah, I still have a job. I have a couple major stories on in a couple weeks, and I need to do them. I can't take off.

AM  We were talking about your expectations going into this. On the one hand, the expectation is that you're going to sell books and you want that to happen, and you know that it will, to, you know, whatever degree that happens. But on the other hand, convincing complete strangers — really, is what we're talking about — to buy this book —

JC  It's funny. Kirt Murray, a guy at the Press, at Wisconsin, told me the other day that we had sold something like 850 books in August, and it wasn't out yet. And I thought it was so neat! I thought, Oh, my god, that's way more than the number of friends I have. (Laughs.) It's not just my friends buying the book. And that's one of the things that made it start to seem sort of real.

AM  And as this takes off now — again, to whatever degree it does — there are going to be all these strangers buying your book and poring over the intimate details of your life. But that's the contract you've made!

JC  That's the contract I've made. It doesn't bother me so much, the strangers. It's the acquaintances that's a little scarier. My colleagues reading about me being on antidepressants or sexual relationships I had — those aren't things you normally talk about at work, ever. But the thing is, you know, the more I thought about it the more I realized, you know, everybody at work has their skeletons. It's pretty obvious; we know that. The only difference is I've put mine in a book and it's available to everyone. But there's nobody who can really cast a stone, or if they do they have no right to because everybody has their story, everybody has a story, and there's nothing to be embarrassed about.

My only concern, honestly, is — I tried to protect the identity of "Kevin"; and that's not his real name. I know if he reads it he'll obviously know it's him, and his family and friends will obviously know it's him. And I just hope that outside of that circle people won't. They might; they might figure it out, but it was never my — it's not my intention to hurt him.

AM  Was there a thought at some point in this process of actually making the book a work of fiction?

JC  I never thought of it as something that could be fiction. It started as a diary. It is a true story. There are things in it that are fictionalized that's for sure. Time frames are changed. The true story actually happened a lot faster. I wasn't working at one place the whole time; I was shifting places. I changed things to make it a better read. It's true. I admit it. Characters are composites; names are changed, things like that.

But I still firmly hold — I'm standing by the idea that at its heart this is a true story. And there is nothing in it that is false when you get to the heart of it. And some of the really dramatic scenes — the things that people have said to me, "Is that true?" — those things are true. Those scenes are very true.