Dover Resident Authors Book On Mitt Romney

Dover resident Ron Scott just finished his first non-fiction work Mitt Romney: An Inside Look at the Man and His Politics, which hit the shelves in October.

A distant cousin of Romney, Scott was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

The two ran in the same social circles when Scott was attending the University of Utah. They didn’t meet until the late eighties when Scott moved to Massachusetts and friends introduced them at their Mormon church in Weston, MA.

When Romney ran for senate in 1994 against Ted Kennedy, Romney called Scott to ask what kind of media issues he would face.

“I began to track him officially then,” Scott said.

Scott followed Romney’s activities in Utah during his time as an organizer of the 2002 Olympics.

Scott said he always believed Romney would come back to Massachusetts. “It was clear he would run after Olympics were over,” he said.

In 2005, Scott wrote a long biographical profile on Romney for Sunstone magazine. “It got picked up all over the place,” said Scott. It was then he realized that “there’s a book in this and I’m the best one to do it.”

He was initially going to write this book in 2008, but Romney withdrew his candidacy. “That ended doing a crash book,” Scott said.

A ‘crash book’, he explained, is written quickly. There was a revised extensive outline created in the spring, a contract in May, signed in June and then the book was written in two months.

It was, “the ultimate term paper,” he said. He said there were small updates added in September and October, but the bulk of it was finished by the first week of August of this year.

Scott is no stranger to writing with a deadline, he was been in the news business since the late sixties when he wrote for daily newspapers while studying journalism at the University of Utah.

“I left there to come here as a missionary when I was 19,” said Scott, which he did for two years, from 1965-1967.

Besides the new book on Romney, Scott has also written four novels and may write one more; all that have Mormonism as a common connector.

“The first one will be out in a few weeks,” he said. He explained that his books are about Mormonism as Philip Roth’s books are about Judaism. The first book in a series of three or four is called Closing Circles: Trapped in the Everlasting Mormon Moment.

“It takes place in New England and Salt Lake City,” said Scott.

The second book, The Mending: A Life Too Well Remembered takes place in New England is scheduled to be out next fall. The third book, Finding Faith, is written in a girl’s voice and takes place in Dover, MA.

Originally, when he conceived the books, he said, “The idea was to get a trilogy, but it turned into four books…maybe five.”

Scott said work on his first novel began in 1982. It was retooled again in the 1990’s, again in 2000 and yet again in 2003. The last chapter was rewritten again to include current events.

It was updated each time Romney ran for political office.

“Romney is minor reference point in the book,” said Scott. The novel’s protagonist is a writer who is trying to finish his first novel and talks to his therapist about feelings of being trapped and hopes finishing his novel will solve some personal issues.

Scott has worked for a variety of publications throughout his career. He said he was the last reporter to be hired by Life magazine before the publication went out of business. He was also a reporter for Sports Illustrated, and a staff writer for Money magazine. He then became part of the start-up editorial staff of People magazine. In 1974 he was the sports and medicine editor for People and was a national correspondent by the time he left.

Regarding whether or not he would knew then that he would like to tackle fiction, he said, “I felt as a young journalist it was all I could do to do that job well. It seemed premature to me at that point.”

He had discussed working on non-fiction with some celebrities he had met like Muhammad Ali, tennis player Chris Everett Lloyd and President Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy Carter.

“I did my best pieces on the guy who invented the artificial heart Dr. Willem Kolff,” he said. 

 “Fiction was intriguing, but I didn’t feel like I had enough experience to try it. I still have some of the early drafts around. Some of it was great and some of it not so great,” Scott said.

Excerpts of Scott’s book on Romney can be found at Politisphere.net. Reviews and some of Scott’s own words can be found at ronaldbscott.blogspot.com.

Related Topics: Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney: An inside look at the man and his politics, Ron Scott, and Ronald B. Scott