TARA BREAK, MIKE JACOBSON, PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE AND EVIL

My books were both my pride and power in the world. They were my entire livelihood, my way of journeying, my self-respect, my way to free speech, independence and to truth. Five novels with a publisher, Abrams, two in print, three under contract, is a most monumental thing in any writing life and career. They already represented years of work and a career just starting to take off in America too. I am still trying to deal with the awful fallout, when everything that can be taken away, was.

How could Mike Jacobson, Abrams CEO, strip that away from any human being, from fans and from a highly lauded writer? They saw the battle, they saw the results, they saw a situation that amounted to sustained psychological cruelty, even torture. With the wound of love in the background too, out of a year’s emotional struggle already with a senior editor who behaved with astonishing irresponsibility, personally and professionally, betraying friendships, reversing words, acting with passive aggression and projecting all her political fears and cynicisms, it was hell on earth. It made me ill.

I was called mad, deluded and evil by an ex, so-called friend, and senior editor, and the labels were just held there by my own editor too. They created working conditions that were visibly harmful, in a conspiracy, threatened under contract and kept up the torture there even in the most fraught and astonishing circumstances later. It was arrogant, barbaric and inhuman. The arc of literature, but especially children’s and young adult literature, is protection of the child, even inside authors trying to navigate journeys, but the journey to resolution, meaning, value, some kind of goodness! What Tara Break, Sarah Van More and Abrams CEO have done was a human and professional evil and they should answer it. Why is HowaHarold Rove no longer Vice President? I see the blogs are being explored, so perhaps they are investigating some bogus attack, some proof of their ‘right’, but to put anyone through that, especially their contracted author, is unbelievable, for any flaws here. They do not know an author very well if they think they can get away with all that.

David Clement-Davies

PA Press