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A string of writers

Indeed, Sequel No. 2 has had as many authors as Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler had husbands.

First up was British writer Emma Tennant, whose well-received sequels to "Jane Eyre" and "Pride and Prejudice" made her seem like an ideal choice to succeed where Ripley had not.

"I don't think the committee could be more pleased with the way 'Scarlett' worked out," Anderson said, citing all the attention and money that came from a book that sold over 6 million copies and spawned a high-profile CBS miniseries.

Still, the critical scorn stung enough to affect the search for the next author.

"We were looking for someone who could produce a high-quality product that would be enduring," he said.

Tennant's "Tara" turned out not to possess the right quality.

"She's an artist and literary, but she doesn't have an American bone in her body and 'Gone With the Wind' is the quintessential American story," said Richardson of St. Martin's, Tennant's publisher when the book was rejected in 1996. "We all read it and said, 'No, no, no.' "

Next up, sort of, was Pat Conroy. The native Atlantan, who wrote "The Great Santini" and "The Prince of Tides," was approached. "Pat says it is the book he was born to write," Richardson recalled.

But after lengthy negotiations, involving everything from Conroy's obligations to a different publisher to his claims that the Mitchell estate wouldn't let him kill off Scarlett or write about miscegenation or homosexuality, Conroy gave up his birthright.

Things never got to the contract stage with Conroy, Anderson said, nor did the committee deem certain topics off-limits.

"He's an artist, and it's hard to tell an artist what to write and what not to write," he said.

The same held true with McCaig, whose occasional use of the "n-word" in his manuscript initially gave the lawyers pause.

"In the end, it was decided that a historical novel that did not use the n-word in the context it would have been used in during that period of history would have been completely unrealistic," Anderson said.

Romance has its place

McCaig, 67, quit writing copy on Madison Avenue 36 years ago to move to a livestock farm in ruggedly mountainous western Virginia. The author, who was not available to comment for this story, had never read "Gone With the Wind" when a St. Martin's editor picked up one of his books in a store, but he knew enough to want to write about Rhett Butler.

"He said, 'I don't just want to do another take on Scarlett. That's not who I am, what I'm interested in,' " Richardson said. "He was interested in the world then, the United States then, the commerce then, the war then. And that's all in there."

Indeed, McCaig has written a book that is both a page-turner and a tightrope walk.

Just as he had to re-create certain key scenes or plot twists very nearly as Mitchell had imagined them, he also couldn't strain credulity by reproducing signature moments to which Rhett had no connection.

And while McCaig (and therefore Rhett) spends more time immersed in various aspects of the war than Mitchell did, well, he still had to give a big damn about romance.

"He's a historian more than a big fiction writer for women," Richardson said. "The biggest contribution we made was to keep saying, 'Donald, remember, probably more than half the audience here is going to be women.' "

Apparently, nobody had to remind him that it all began here in Margaret Mitchell's hometown.

For all its roaming of the Old South, "Rhett Butler's People" never feels more alive and authentic than in passages devoted to Atlanta's postwar efforts to rise from the ashes. The descriptions of a hustling, bustling city eager to reinvent itself go a long way toward explaining Atlanta's modern-day personality.

There never was any question about launching the book here, Richardson said. Along with "Rhett Velvet Cupcakes," Saturday's party at the Margaret Mitchell House & Museum will feature McCaig autographing his book three days before it officially goes on sale, along with the inestimable aura that comes from being where "Gone With the Wind" was written.

"The fact that it was still there, and people are still so fervent about it ... there's a lot of reverence for the history," said Richardson, who recalls being "very moved" when she visited several years ago.

"It's been a long haul, and to kick it off there just seemed right. It's the scene of the scene."

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