I’d been thinking about this cover long before I actually finished the book. I’d envisioned a close-up of my friend Charlie, a long-time smoker. I wanted a fish-eye type photo, the kind of thing you’d see from the little security lens in a front door: big nose, cigarette looming large in the foreground, face receding quickly into the background.

I finished the book, and for the first desktop printing in booklet form, I needed an instant cover, something I could slap temporarily in place before giving it to Melody for the first reading. So I went online and Googled images under the title "smoking." Scrolling through, I came across an intriguing black and white shot of a guy in big glasses, white umbrella behind him, puffing away, looking very worried. I loved it; it was just the kind of expression I needed for a person suffering guilt over his vice. I couldn’t use it for the finished product because it was copyrighted, but I could use it for the mock-up that I’d give Melody.

Melody loved that cover, and so did everybody else I showed it to. I showed it to my son Aaron, and he said, "That’s Elijah Wood." I hadn’t realized that. "You kind of look like him in this photo," I said. Then it hit me: I could reproduce this cover with Aaron. I asked him if he wanted to do it. "I’m in," he said. The first order of business was ordering the crazy glasses. Aaron went online and in a week had the eyewear necessary to make himself into this strange person.

I sent the mock-up to my sister—we hadn’t shot the cover yet—and she actually thought it was Aaron. "You guys did a nice job on that cover," she said.

"That’s Elijah Wood," I said.

On Sunday, March 25, 2007, we set up the shot. We already had a white umbrella, used by my oldest son Artie as a reflector in movie shots. And though no one in my family smoked, Artie had a pack of cigarettes he’d bought two years before for an anti-smoking ad he’d filmed for his school. The only thing Aaron had to do was get the cigarette started and then hold it in his mouth.

It was strange lighting a cigarette for my son. Melody didn’t care for it at all. "What if this is the day he starts smoking?" she fretted. Aaron rolled his eyes.

"He can always read the book," I said.

PHOTOS