If Evans protested to the publishers a copy of the letter exists
Posted Jun 29, 2009 1:46 PM
I would bet that if Evans protested to the publishers after the book came out about the so-called fabricated stories I know Scott Black would have a copy of that letter in the Evans archives which he has. Evans would have made a copy of the letter he sent to the publishers and kept it.
Since several people have indicated that Evans was so unhappy with the final book I would think he surely would write the publisher to complain about anything he thought was made up and I would like to see that letter.
But what David Hogue pointed out in his post forces me to accept the identification of the so-called fabricated stories as just that-SO-CALLED. Mr. Hogue has pointed out the possibility that the Shaffner pregnancy story might just have happened and if it did then it couldn't be a fabricated story.
This story is a lot more important in the life of Bix than who drove a car to Atlantic City.
But I want to defend Phil Evans here by saying that if the pregnancy story was disclosed to him by Ruth Shaffner I don't think it was the kind of incident he would want to see in the book and surely not one he would include in his notes or whatever for Sudhalter to work with. I don't think Evans would disclose that story to any publisher. I would think he would leave it out of his manuscript.
And if Evans would leave it out of the manuscript Sudhalter had no way of knowing the incident happened, if it did, and made it up.
I don't think there is any information in Evans research verifying the Ruth pregnancy story but like I said before I bet there is a letter from Ruth Shaffner to Evans raking him on the subject and showing she was very angry about it.