The House of the Spirits

by Isabel Allende

Jean de Satigny.

One of the most notorious characters in the novel is the Count Jean de Satigny. Originally, he was called Count de Bilbaire, but when my mother read the manuscript, she was appalled that I had given the pervert count the maternal surname of my father. I had to change it. This was 1981, several decades before computers were a home fixture. Cut and paste was exactly that: cut with scissors and paste with glue or scotch tape. Delete was done with a white liquid called Tippex. First, I had to find another name that was one letter shorter than Bilbaire so it would fit in the space. We had a plastic tray with a map of France where I found a place called Satigny. Six letters instead of seven. Perfect. Then my whole family sat around the dining room table and went through each page with a ruler from top to bottom looking for the damn Count. My daughter would paint the name with Tippex, my mother would dry it with a hair dryer, and I would place the page in my typewriter and change Bilbaire into Satigny. That’s how authors wrote back then. And before my time, they wrote novels by hand with ink and pen.