Thomas Boss Congdon Jr. (March 17, 1931 – December 23, 2008) was an American book editor who worked on Russell Baker's memoir Growing Up, Peter Benchley's bestselling novel Jaws, and David Halberstam's 1986 work The Reckoning, as well as the infamous Michelle Remembers, an unreliable account of child abuse that contributed to the Satanic panic.
[1] He dropped out of Yale during his sophomore year to work on a gold mine in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Benchley wanted to write a non-fiction book about pirates, but Congdon wasn't interested.
[2][5] After extensive rewriting based on Congdon's guidance, Jaws was published in 1974 and stayed on the bestseller list for some 44 weeks.
Congdon reviewed Berg's original manuscripts, which had been written in the varying styles of several notable authors, and finally circled a paragraph that he felt captured what he was looking for, saying "You know who this sounds like?
[1] In 1994, Congdon's non-fiction book Having Babies was published by Simon & Schuster, described by Kirkus Reviews as "A look at pregnancy and childbirth as they are experienced by patients of an obstetrical practice in a wealthy New Jersey town.
"[11] He died at age 77 on December 23, 2008, at his home in Nantucket, Massachusetts, due to congestive heart failure and Parkinson's disease.