Latest update 12 August 2005

Over the years many people have asked if Parker ever wrote short stories.  For a long time I considered this to be the only one but I've changed my mind as more evidence kept piling up.  You can read about the others on a page I call Spenser's Shorts but this tale is a bit lengthy so I gave it a page of it own.   

At a book signing in my area Parker told an amusing story of how it came about.  Here's what I wrote about that:

Playboy contacted him and asked for a story, which he did not want to supply because he didn't write short stories. Finally he relented and wrote "Surrogate." They rejected it. First and only time he has ever had a manuscript rejected. It wound up being published in a men's magazine whose name he would not mention in mixed company.  They began the story in a long skinny column and jumped to the remainder, leaving the rest of that page for a large add for crotchless mouse suits. The punch line: "I'm not even sure what that is. I didn't know mice wore suits." 

Brian J Noggle wrote in to say:

"The unmentionable magazine is Gallery.  In the May 1984 issue, they have an interview with Robert B. Parker (on the cover it's called 'Robert B. Parker: Rewriting the Book on Justice' and inside it's called 'The Case of Robert B. Parker.')  In addition to the profile/interview, 'Surrogate' appears." 

See Surrogate in Gallery for the pictures to prove it.

I've actually had an Email chat with the editor at Playboy who turned down the story after Parker submitted it, and it was the sexual violence that got it bounced. While admitting that it is a very good and well told story the fact that it centers around a woman who has been brutally raped was deemed unsuitable for their publication. They have no problem with stories about consensual sex, or about killing someone who deserves it, but in their judgment it didn't belong in a magazine largely devoted to pictures of naked women, and I agree with that decision.  Gallery apparently thought otherwise.

So we have a story with limited availability that he probably sold for chump change.  The next step was to make it even more rare and unavailable but to collect some money for it.  Lord John's Press printed up some very nicely bound volumes, 300 regular and 50 deluxe editions, signed and numbered.  I don't know what they originally sold for but they are traded on the second-hand market and auction pages for many hundreds of dollars.  Nice if you can afford it but there are more fans than copies so that is not a viable option.

Now here is where things get interesting.  In 1991 it was included in a collection of short stories called "New Crimes 3" printed in Great Britain.  Who sold it to them?  I don't know how such business is arranged but his agent/lawyer/publisher did so and probably fed the money to his accountant under "miscellaneous."  When I put my copy in front of him at the above mentioned signing he expressed surprise that it had been reprinted.  My copy is probably the only signed edition of the book extant. 

The story has Spenser helping Brenda Loring (who we first met in The Godwulf Manuscript) with a very serious problem in her personal life.  It's a hard hitting piece and very well worth reading, especially as it explicitly refers to the dark side of Hawk's profession. 

The book is long out of print so you will have to find it on the second hand market.  I highly recommend www.bibliofind.com which I have used many times to buy obscure volumes.  Search for "New Crimes 3", edited by Maxim Jakubowski and published by Carroll and Graf.   The last time I looked prices started at five dollars plus shipping and went up from there. 

BTW: Bibliofind is now part of Amazon.com but it's much better to come in through the above link.