How co-writing a book threatened Jimmy Carter's marriage

Books

NEW YORK (AP) — No former president had a more productive and diverse publishing profession than Jimmy Carter.

Its greater than two dozen Books These included non-fiction, poetry, fiction, religious meditations and a children's story. His memoir “An Hour Before Daylight” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2002, while his 2006 bestseller “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” sparked heated debate by comparing Israel's policies within the West Bank to South Africa's brutal system of racial segregation .

And just before his one centesimal birthday, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation honored him with a lifetime achievement award for his use of “the power of the written word to promote peace, social justice and global understanding.”

In a recent work, “A Full Life,” Carter noted that he “enjoyed writing” and that his books “provided a much-needed source of income.” But some projects were easier than others.

“Everything to Gain,” a 1987 collaboration together with his wife Rosalynn, became “the worst threat we have ever faced in our marriage,” a stubborn standoff for the Camp David Accords broker and Nobel Peace Prize winner.

According to Carter, Rosalynn was a meticulous author who “viewed the resulting sentences as if they had come down from Mount Sinai, set in stone.” Their memories of various events varied they usually got into “constant arguments.” They were prepared to offer up on the book and pay back the advance until their editor persuaded them to easily split all of the disputed passages between them.

“In the book, each of those paragraphs is marked with a 'J' or an 'R,' and our marriage survived,” he wrote.

Here is a partial list of Carter's books:

• “Keeping the Faith: Memoirs of a President”
• “The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East”
• (With Rosalynn Carter) “Everything to Win: Make the Most of the Rest of Your Life”
• “An Outdoor Diary: Adventures and Reflections”
• “Turning Point: A Candidate, a State and a Nation Come of Age”
• “Always a reckoning and other poems”
• (With daughter Amy Carter) “The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer”
• “Living Faith”
• “The Virtues of Aging”
• “An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Childhood”
• “Christmas on the Plains: Memories”
• “The Hornet’s Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War”
• “Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis”
• “Faith and Freedom: The Christian Challenge for the World”
• “Palestine: Peace instead of apartheid”
• “A remarkable mother”
• “Beyond the White House”
• “We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work”
• “White House Diary”
• “NIV Lessons from the Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter”
• “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power”
• “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety”