The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  “Do you really think so?” The girl blushed again. She was adorable.

  “Yes, I do. Someday, with the right guidance, you could be a successful writer.”

  The girl said nothing, but she was clearly transported. Those were the magic words, the words that all neophytes longed to hear. Cheryl looked up at him, full in the face for the first time. “I feel like you’ve given me so much already,” she breathed.

  Do you know I’m deeply attracted to you? He had almost said it. The words had formed in his brain and his lips were about to begin moving when there was another knock on the door. This caller didn’t wait to be asked in. Don Kingsbury, the head of the department and just about the only member who still spoke to him, smiled in the doorway. Cheryl turned and, without another word, walked past him and out of the room.

  Don, oblivious, raised his brows. “How’s it going?” he asked. Daniel shrugged. Don was a big guy, well over six foot, and chunky. He sat himself on a corner of the desk and crossed his massive legs. Daniel stood up to be above his eye level. He wondered how much Don had overheard of his talk with Cheryl. Don merely glanced down at Daniel’s notebook.

  “Ah, the book. How’s that going?” Don asked.

  “Not too badly,” Daniel admitted noncommittally. “You know, I’m not attempting art here. Just something that’s workmanlike, something that can be published.”

  “Yeah. Something the movies will buy,” Don said, laughing. “Will you read it at the writers’ circle?” Twice each month Daniel led a writers’ group meeting in which participants read their current work and got feedback and, sometimes, criticism. Especially from Daniel.

  “I already have,” Daniel said. “I might read some more tonight.”

  “Well, I’ll walk you over there. I thought I might sit in. You know, I really do admire the way you’ve sustained that group. And you’ve done an excellent job on the seminars. Bringing up those first-time novelists for the panel discussion was a great idea.”

  “I did have to pull a few strings,” Daniel said modestly. Actually, it hadn’t been too difficult to get them. After all, who the hell wanted to hear the experiences of a literary first novelist?

  “And I was amazed when you got Alfred Byron up here.”

  Daniel nodded. That was a coup. Alfred Byron was a prestigious agent, but when one of the young writer’s books had taken off—a young writer Byron represented—he’d been appreciative that Daniel had invited him. In return he’d agreed to give a brief talk. He’d come back again to moderate a panel discussion. And Daniel secretly planned for Alfred Byron to do much, much more.

  “I think you are really bringing a breath of reality to the department,” Don said. “You know, we have so many students who want to write and don’t have a clue about what the business of getting published is all about. And then we have our ivory-tower academics who believe that any writer still living can’t be worthwhile. You’ve really added positive diversity to the department.” Daniel felt his heart lift. Maybe he wasn’t as unsafe or as sorry as he had thought.

  “I’m certainly trying. I’m trying to make a difference.” Did that sound too corny?

  “Well, you’re succeeding. I don’t know how you manage to teach your classes, schedule these events, and write a novel on the side. I certainly couldn’t do it.” Don laughed heartily. Of course, he could afford to—he had tenure. He was the head of the whole fucking department.

  Daniel paused for a moment. He ought to mention that he was working on the novel with Judith, that she was drafting much of the book, but somehow he felt constrained. Best not to bring up Judith and all of that again, not at this moment, when Don was being so positive. “Yes, it’s hard,” Daniel admitted, “but I’m interested in it all. That takes the edge off.”

  “So, do you mind if I sit in on the writers’ circle? Would it be too intrusive?”

  Daniel thought of how shy Cheryl Jenkins was, and of nervous Bob Hadley. Of course it would be an intrusion, to have the head of the department casually eavesdropping on their work in progress. But Daniel knew that Chuck Tasity would grandstand, and perhaps—just perhaps—he himself would read some from his notebook. That wouldn’t hurt.

  “It wouldn’t be an intrusion at all,” Daniel said and smiled at Don. “Why don’t you join us?”

  Judith typed the last words of the last sentence of the last chapter of the book and then sat for a moment, her hands still raised above the keyboard. She felt empty and almost frightened.

  Slowly, she brought her hands down to her lap. Before her, carefully piled on the card table, were all of her completed chapters, each one neatly revised and retyped according to Daniel’s critique. They made a large, squared white stack. A stack of her work—well, their work together. In the silence and space of the deepening darkness outside the small turret room, Judith felt the question hanging over her.

  What next?

  She thought she had read somewhere that writers often felt a sadness, and emptiness, when they finished a book. But sadness was not exactly what she felt. Bravely, she sat still and tried to feel what it was that felt so constricting. She was relieved the book was finished, because it had been such hard work. Each morning she had had to force herself to sit down at the card table. Each empty sheet of paper stared at her like a challenge; each crumpled sheet in the wastebasket was a silent rebuke. And it had been hard, too, being so often criticized by Daniel.

  But, she realized, it had kept her occupied. The feeling she had now was close to fear. What else did she now have to do? Her labors were over, and from here on it would be Daniel who had to do the work. Daniel would have to begin using his connections to get the book published and bring in the money they so desperately needed. She should be elated, but she was frightened instead. Don’t be silly, she told herself. You’ve done it. You’ve really finished it. You never thought you could.

  Judith felt another little chill. What if, despite his boasts and the people he had “collected” at seminars and panels, what if Daniel was wrong and the book was no good? What if he couldn’t sell it? Had she wasted so many hours, so much energy and pain? And whose failure would it be?

  Because Judith had not written what she had wanted to write. That book, both she and Daniel agreed, would have been too uncommercial, too literary. How large a market was there for the story of an upper-middle-class girl whose father virtually ran the town they lived in? The girl would find herself pregnant by a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, if there were tracks in their town. It was, as Daniel told her, “too revelatory,” “too small,” and “too artsy.” Just another sensitive coming-of-age book.

  This book would be bigger than that one could ever be, if less felt and less real. Like the authors of many commercial books, she—well, they—had plucked the idea from the newspapers. Judith had been reading the horrific story of a woman who had reported her three children missing, only to later admit that she herself had murdered them. Judith had cried over the story, not only for the babies but for the woman’s demented state. Somehow, Judith understood that kind of desperate forlornness. It was Daniel, listening to her talk about it, who had recognized the hook. And so they had come up with the plot for In Full Knowledge.

  Now the finished work sat before her, and looking at it, Judith shivered. Although she had invented Elthea, the heroine, Judith felt as if her character was real and Judith knew her: her desperation as her husband cheated and her marriage crumbled; the claustrophobia of being left with the three little boys; the fear and drabness of living on a single mother’s inadequate salary; her father’s refusal to give her financial help; her grasping at the chance for a new beginning with another man, and her hysteria when she lost him, too. Was it coincidence that the real murderess had been abandoned by three males and that she subsequently murdered three? Judith knew that while her fictional Elthea was not a typical sympathetic character, Judith’s own understanding and compassion for her had illuminated every page.

  The truth was that Ju
dith identified with Elthea. After all, hadn’t Judith been a victim of her father and of her first boyfriend back in Elmira? The book revealed more of her than she had planned. And perhaps, she thought, I’m also frightened now because I’m afraid no one will understand Elthea. Maybe that’s all it is. But a deeper voice told her that wasn’t all: Somewhere lurked the fear that without this book to talk about, Daniel might not talk to her at all.

  “Well, Flaubert, I did it. This occasion justifies a Milk-Bone for you.” The dog gave her a bark.

  Judith’s back was stiff, and all at once she felt as if she had to move. Slowly, she pushed away from the card table, stood up, and stretched. What was wrong with her? The book was finished. Daniel would be pleased, and tonight they would celebrate. She walked down the three steps that led to the kitchen and the hall closet. Daniel kept his suit and sports jackets in their bedroom wardrobe, and Judith used the hall closet as her own. She took down the blue wool dress, the one she had bought with her mother the last time they shopped together in Poughkeepsie. She held it up against herself, looking in the hall mirror. It brought out the blonder tones in her light brown hair and the depth of color in her eyes, but she wondered if she could still get into it. “What do you think, Flaubert?” The dog cocked his head. Nothing but approval and a desire for Milk-Bones there. She looked back to the mirror critically. She’d gained weight sitting at the typewriter and moiling around the empty apartment, snacking nervously and out of boredom. She thought she could still manage the dress.

  She decided to shower, dress, put up her hair, and apply all the makeup she didn’t bother with most of the time. She’d look her best when Daniel came home tonight, and they’d go out to dinner and have a bottle of wine and celebrate. The book was done, and once they sold it, they could go on to live the life they had planned. Maybe she could even have the baby she wanted so desperately. Judith shook off her gray mood and tried to be cheerful. In Full Knowledge might not have been the book she wanted to write, but she had written it well, and she knew that Daniel was pleased, despite his criticisms. She had made Elthea live, and no one could read the book without understanding why she had done what she did. Perhaps readers might even feel that they, in the same situation, would have done the same thing.

  Judith stepped into the shower and let the hot water run down her sore neck and tense back. She used the expensive almond shampoo she saved for special occasions and enjoyed its clean, evocative scent. It was only when she was rinsing off that Judith remembered that tonight was Daniel’s writers’ circle and that he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

  10

  When I am dead,

  I hope it may be said:

  “His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”

  —Hilaire Belloc

  “What about the new Callard book?”

  “Crap,” Pam Mantiss told Gerald Ochs Davis. “Midlist crap.”

  “But we’ll have the Peet Trawley,” Gerald said to reassure himself. “That will fly. Especially with the movie coming up.”

  “I hope we’ll have it. He’s really sick.”

  “He’s been sick for thirty years. He likes to be sick. Münchhausen syndrome. It matters not. Just slap an omega on the cover. It will still sell.” Gerald thought of Dick Snyder’s directions years ago to the Simon & Schuster editor who was trying to cope with an impossible Jackie Susann manuscript: “Just turn it into a book somehow; that’s all I ask.” Gerald looked over the list in front of him. “When does Edmonds deliver the new one?”

  Pam shook her head. She read his thoughts. “Forget it. Apparently her old house is still getting returns from her last book. She isn’t going to do it for us.”

  Gerald stopped going over the printout before him. Pam had already accused him of buying Edmonds when she was past her peak, paying top dollar. “We’re not forgetting this one,” he told Pam. “I paid twenty million dollars. Her books are going to sell no matter what we have to do to sell them.”

  Pam shrugged. She was smart, but sometimes he wanted to murder her. He thought she actually enjoyed writing off authors. Like Tom Callard, the hot first-time novelist whom Pam had snagged (and probably shagged) before an auction could take place. The book sold two hundred thousand copies. Now his second was suddenly chopped liver? They must have had a lover’s quarrel.

  “How about the Chad Weston book? I’ve heard it’s raw.”

  “It’s graphic, violent sex. I like it.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Gerald said dryly. “But will anyone else?”

  “Well, the pussies around here are scandalized, but they don’t know the difference between fiction and politics,” Pam said. “I love the book. It’s a satire. He’s satirizing our disposable culture. Smart people will get it.” She paused and grinned. “It will raise a lot of eyebrows.”

  Involuntarily, Gerald put his hand up to one of his own glued-on brows. Sometimes he hated them. “Will it raise our profits?” he snapped.

  “Absolutely. It’s a book of our times, about how the nineties came out of the eighties. It’s about how man, without civilization’s restraint, fears and destroys that which created him. It’s about tit-biting boys, Gerald. It will move.”

  Gerald winced at her crudity. Weston was another ninety-day wonder. His first book had hit—his second had not. “It better do more than move,” Gerald said. “It’s got to run. I want to see the manuscript. What’s the title?”

  “SchizoBoy.”

  Gerald barked out a laugh. “Clearly autobiographical.” Pam merely shrugged, her blond hair bouncing, as did her breasts. “There’s my book, of course.”

  “Of course,” Pam said noncommittally.

  “Have you read it?”

  “Not yet,” she admitted.

  “Any nonfiction?” he asked, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

  “Yeah. Oprah’s back and we got her,” Pam said caustically. When Oprah Winfrey had reneged on delivering her autobiography to Knopf, it had nearly ruined their bottom line. Pam and Gerald both knew the trouble with commercial nonfiction: Lots of people had one good story in them, but few had more. The nonfiction editors were like sharks; they had to keep moving or die. After all, how many autobiographies could Dolly Parton write?

  “What else can we do?”

  “I’ll call around,” Pam said. “I’ll see what’s being pushed. But it wouldn’t hurt you to get the lead out and circulate. Put your ear to the ground.”

  “Is there a cliché you’ve left unspoken?” Gerald asked her as he rose. “I’m off to the Citron Press party. Maybe something will turn up.”

  Gerald looked around at the party crowd and had to restrain a visible shudder. In the old days, even ten years ago, book parties were low-budget, dreary affairs held in offices or building lobbies. Now, with publishing turning into what Gerald scathingly called the “literary industrial complex,” parties were much fewer but often high-budget, flashy offerings. Gerald couldn’t decide which was worse. This one was one of the old school, celebrating the opening of a new small publishing house, Citron Press. Craig Stevens was hosting it, and Gerald hoped Stevens had deep pockets. He was joining the trend that Permanent Press and Four Walls Eight Windows had begun—boutique publishers. Good luck to him.

  Gerald smiled, nodding at HarperCollins’s Larry Ashmead, king of salt-and-pepper-shaker collections, and moved on. Fredi Friedman, the only soignée woman present, was as usual talking to someone about her latest discovery, telling him how it was certain to climb the lists.

  Gerald sighed. One couldn’t start a literary house anymore. Things had changed. Look at Farrar, Straus. In the past, “quality literary fiction” was defined as Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Roger Straus and Robert Giroux had started right after the war with only twenty-five thousand dollars. Straus had a vision that informed and shaped his list into something beautiful. Even Gerald had to admit that. They had made canny domestic purchases and bought translation rights to the best European literature as well.

&nb
sp; Just as Farrar, Straus had been known for the best fiction, Harper & Row had been known as the quality nonfiction house. Cass Canfield had liked history and biographies and so had shaped a dignified, cohesive list. At Doubleday it had been commercial fiction and nonfiction. For three decades, Doubleday ruled the bestseller list. That was what it did best.

  But those days were over, Gerald reflected. Publishing had changed so much. Now all everyone wanted were bestsellers. Roger Straus had sold his firm. Harper was bought by Rupert Murdoch, and HarperCollins had expanded in half a dozen directions. Doubleday was now a part of the Bertelsmann empire. The tax laws had made it necessary: Even his father had sold out. The days when a personal influence held sway on a house, on a list, were over. Everyone had to scramble for bestsellers now just to keep in the business. Look at what had happened at Knopf—another house known for its great literary fiction: When Sonny Mehta had taken over that venerable firm, he acquired Dean Koontz! Gerald had to laugh, thinking of how all the snotty literary people at Knopf, so proud of their designer fiction, must have felt swallowing that.

  Gerald was proud now to be able to say, “There is no such thing as a Davis & Dash book.” He wanted books that sold, that made a splash and that kept him afloat. Like the other sharks, Gerald had to keep moving forward, keep making visible progress, to satisfy CEO David Morton’s corporate lust for ever-increasing profits, a return on investment almost impossible to make considering the outrageous advances paid to authors and the quaint tradition of stores returning books.

  Gerald surveyed the room. His eyes were attracted to the red hair of Joanna Coder, the head of the eponymously named Joanna Coder Books, a bright face in the usual drab publishing party. Generally, Gerald avoided these affairs, but he knew Pam’s recommendation to “get his ear to the ground” was a good one. Still, did the women dress so badly because they were paid so little? Surely it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it was to find a smartly dressed female editor.