The Second Coming of Steve Jobs - Alan Deutschman [31]
In 1987, the editor of The Paris Review, George Plimpton, threw a party at his Manhattan townhouse to celebrate the publication of Anywhere But Here. Mona made her entrance along with the two people to whom the book was dedicated: her mother, Joanne, and the man she introduced as her brother, Steve Jobs. The Steve Jobs. His identity was a revelation even to the well-informed elite of Manhattan’s media circles. Mona’s famous literary agent, Amanda “Binky” Urban, later told the New York Times: “I had known Mona for quite a while. She had said she had a brother who worked in the computer industry. But that party was the first time I learned that her brother was Steve Jobs.”
Anywhere But Here was a publishing rarity, a finely crafted “literary” novel that was both a critical success and a strong seller. It established Mona as one of the most promising novelists of her generation. Steve was so proud of his sister’s work that he filled one of his office’s bookshelves with copies and gave them out freely to his colleagues. Mona began composing her prose on a Macintosh.
Mona became very close to Steve and to the other women in his life. Mona spent time in northern California and got to know his adoptive mother, Clara, before she succumbed to cancer in 1986 after a prolonged illness. Her death had a profound and enduring effect on Steve. Some years later, when he heard that his friend Heidi Roizen’s father had died, he would rush to her house and sit with her for hours, listening to her with the concern and empathy of someone who deeply understood her loss and her need for catharsis.
Mona developed a friendship with Tina. She also spent time with Chris-Ann and Lisa, who turned nine in 1987. Steve had finally overcome his denial and accepted the sweet precocious little girl as his daughter. He brought her to the Next offices. As Steve’s colleagues walked by, she sprang cartwheels through the hallways, gleefully shouting “Look at me!” in her high-pitched voice. He was trying to get more involved in her life. It was happening slowly, fitfully, and a bit awkwardly, but it was happening.
Steve himself was growing up.
Steve was intensely private about his family and especially protective about the women who loved him. One of his public relations consultants from that period recalls: “We knew Tina but we were admonished severely never to talk about her or about Mona.” They were off-limits to reporters, and details about their relationships with Steve never appeared in the media. But there was one thing that Steve couldn’t possibly control:
Mona drew on her closest personal relationships for her autobiographical fiction. And Mona was remembering everything.
• • •
IN 1987, as Steve began resolving the conflicts in his personal life, he was still driven by the intense need for vindication in his career. His passionate work and his accomplishments at Next remained shrouded by self-imposed secrecy; meanwhile, no one in the industry could ignore the stunning comeback that Apple was making in his conspicuous absence. When Steve left the company, Apple’s stock was trading below $10. He dumped his seven million shares quietly, in staggered sales over several months, always at prices under $15. By early 1986, he had disposed of all but one share, which he held on to as a symbolic gesture. As a financial maneuver his timing was remarkably bad. The stock began climbing. Before the start of 1987 it surpassed $20 a share. Within months it rocketed to a high of nearly $60 before settling in the mid-$40s for most of 1988. With Steve out of his way, Sculley had doubled Apple’s sales, tripled its profits, quadrupled its stock price, and restored the faith of Wall Street, and he did it all in the brief period of only three years.
But Steve’s earlier struggles were at least partly responsible for Apple’s renewed success: his cherished creation,