Book Talk: Die and Write About It

Book Talk: Die and Write About It
By Sarah Lyall
The New York Times

Embraced By The Light, Betty J. Eadies accout of how she died after a hysterectomy, rose to heaven to meet Jesus and scores of angels and then returned with a jolt to her body, initially seemed a bit far out to may members of Manhattan's decidedly cynical publishing world.

But 590,000 copies have already been printed, and the book is nearing its fifth week on the New York Times best-seller list, where it moves into the No. 6 spot today.

Not bad for a first-time author and grief counselor who received no advance and for a publisher that has printed only one book, this one.

"Everyone told us that a near-death book wouldn't sell," said the book's publisher, Marc Stephen Garrison, an entrepenuer and author of business books from Sundance, Utah. Garrison, who owns a tuna-fishing fleet and a travel agency, among other things, founded Gold Leaf Press specifically for Eadie's book.

Published in November and distributed regionally, the book began to sell wildly in Garrison's home state. Sales surged in areas where the publisher placed radio infomericals and where Eadie appeared personally to crowds so large that the traffic clogged the highways from miles around. "I couldn't believe it; I had never seen anything like it, "said Tamar Mays, a buyer for Walden-books, who decided to offer the book thoughout the chain after hearing glowing reports from regional buyers.

In an auction two weeks ago, Bantam Books bought the paperback rights to Eadie's book for more than $1.5 million. Russell Galen, a literary agent from the firm of Scovil, Chichak & Galen, who represents Gold Leaf, orchestrated the proceedings by telephone from his New Jersey kitchen.

"I've been deluged with interest in this book," Galen said. Eadie herself said she had not had time to hire an agent. "I guess I shoud get one," she said in an interview at the American booksellers' convention in Miami last week, where she appeared to promote her book. "I just don't know any good ones."

In Embraced By The Light, Eadie who lives in Seattle with her husband, Joseph, a computer-systems analyst, writes that she died one day in 1973 and was reborn several hours later after a whirlwind trip through the heavens. Among the spirits she met, Eadie says, were many preparing to return to earth, including, one who became her adopted daughter several years later.

"It's a spiritual thing, not a religious thing," Eadie said, adding that she had showed her manuscript to several publishers before Garrison, but that nothing had worked out. "I hate to sound bizarre, but I knew by the spirit that the right people would come."

Bantam's president and publisher, Irwyn Applebaum, called the book "remarkably affecting and thorough."

"Most books on this subject have been by academics or researchers of one kind or another who may not have had their own near-death experience," he added.

"She is a very serious person," he said of Eadie. "Most of the New York publishers I talked to, well, you sort of look at this book with arched eye-brows and say, 'This is for them out there, not for us.' But I saw some awfully hard-edged people read it and come away surprisingly affected. It does make you stop and think."