The Bestseller

by Olivia Goldsmith

  I’m writing to you at the Helvetia with a request for them to forward it to you, if you’ve moved on. Mother said something about Assisi. Generally, I would be a little more impressed with your literary management skills if the two of you amateurs hadn’t forgotten to enclose an address for the author. Definitely not good form, old boy. SASE, please. Even for submissions from brothers.

  Anyway, give me a call to let me know when (and if) you’re coming back. Meanwhile, I’m thinking of you. And I’m grateful to report that my own private life is looking up. Which is to say, I almost have one.

  I would write more, but I don’t know who will be reading this to you. The telephone works.

  Love,

  Emma

  Camilla, utterly amazed, scanned the letter again, and then a third time. It was like a beam of light, not just cutting through her darkness but illuminating a future—a real, potential future. Frederick truly had liked the book, and his blessed sister did, too.

  Then for one horrible moment, Camilla wondered if this wasn’t some hoax, a misguided attempt by Frederick to “make it up” to her or recapture her attention. But a scrawl across the bottom of the paper reassured her. “I am leaving for New York tomorrow. Please come to the hotel this evening. Business only. And congratulations.” Underneath that, in even more uneven handwriting, he’d written, “You owe me nothing.”

  Camilla stared at the single page before her. She could hardly believe the power it had. Twenty thousand dollars! She’d never had more than five hundred pounds at any time in her life. She got up and, without even realizing it, virtually waltzed across the room and threw herself back down on the bed. Her book was good enough to be published, and by a New York publisher! She was so shocked, so delighted, that she threw herself onto her stomach and began to giggle. How strange: She had been lying here less than fifteen minutes ago in despair, and now she was enraptured. Everything had changed. Somewhere in New York a woman liked her story of middle-aged American ladies and was willing to give her a pot of money. Should she stay on here in the city that she loved and begin a second book? Should she go on to London? Or should she return to New York, the city she had been defeated by? One thing she did not consider was a ticket to Birmingham. Again, Camilla giggled. It was just far too outrageous. She’d been rescued. Was she dreaming?

  The only thing she knew was that she would go to the hotel. Whatever damage Frederick had inflicted, he had more than made up for it with this wonderful boon. She would see Frederick tonight, and she would thank him. But she would never talk about her feelings for him again. It would be all business and platonic friendship. Camilla would not let herself be hurt anymore.

  45

  There are men that will make you books and turn ’em loose into the world with as much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.

  —Miguel de Cervantes

  The list meetings were always a double ordeal for Gerald: It wasn’t just that they were long and rancorous; or that future sales depended on them; or that everybody had a pet peeve or a personal agenda; or that people took each decision personally. Because, as if all that was not enough, Gerald also felt as if his father attended every meeting with him, second-guessing him and (too often) silently criticizing his decisions. After all his years of therapy, Gerald might have shaken the ghostly feeling if he wasn’t totally aware that Jim Meyer, corporate counsel and mole, would give his father a full report of everything. Gerald nervously looked down at his almost-invisible monogrammed initials. Before a list meeting he certainly wished sometimes that he were more godlike, at least in his omniscience.

  The list meeting was where he and Pam Mantiss finalized the editorial acquisitions for the season and presented them to the key marketing and sales staff. Then the team, under Gerald’s despotic guidance, began to structure publication dates, print runs, quotas, sales strategies, advertising budgets, publicity campaigns, author tours, and all the other necessities that would support the list. Dickie Pointer, VP of sales, was tough and battle-scarred: There wasn’t a bookseller he didn’t know or a quota he couldn’t argue. Other attendees were Amy Rosenfeld, head of marketing, and, unfortunately, Chuck Rector. Wendy Brennon, vice president of publicity, was the only new player. The meeting would position books relative to one another and whatever else they guessed or knew would be out there in the marketplace. Books were ranked not necessarily by quality, though Gerald did like to consider that. Personal enthusiasm in a book among staff counted, but with something like Susann Baker Edmonds’s new novel there was the overwhelming consideration of how much Davis & Dash had paid for the book—-and how much, therefore, had to be further invested to recoup. Well, Gerald thought, he wouldn’t open the meeting with that hot potato. Nor would he mention the Chad Weston fiasco. And, if they knew what was good for them, none of the others would mention it either.

  His buzzer rang. “They’re all waiting,” Mrs. Perkins said.

  Gerald already knew that. The woman annoyed him, so he played a childish—but to him amusing—game of annoying her back. “I’d like a cup of coffee,” he told her. “No, make it espresso.” That took longer. “I’ll have it in here.” This was his company, his offices, his conference room, despite what David Morton might think. It was his meeting and his goddamned list. The publishing house still had his name on the door, the letterhead, and the Quotron stock data. He’d take his time.

  He looked down at the memo for the list meeting. They would never get through all of this today, he thought, and lifted his thumb and index finger to the arching bridge of his nose, pinching the place that got tight from tension. Well, he would do his magic, work his way through and see if, yet again, he could come up with a list of books that would manage to make money, give some status to the house, and get them on the bestseller list. It wouldn’t be easy.

  Worse than the lack of confidence in the Edmonds book, worse than the gap that SchizoBoy had left, would be facing down Dickie Pointer and Chuck Rector as he insisted on a huge printing for his own book. Well, Gerald wouldn’t start with that, either. He’d make the agenda and see when the time was right for that particular skirmish.

  Mrs. Perkins knocked and entered. The tiny demitasse cup rattled in her hand. She put it down on his desk, and he could see how difficult it was for her not to prod him to get up. Spitefully, he picked up the spoon and slowly stirred the deep brown liquid, though, as he didn’t take sugar, there was no need to. Then he put the spoon down on the thin saucer. “Any biscotti?” he asked. He watched as her thin lips tightened. She nodded her head. He didn’t really want one, so as she was returning with a plate, he passed her in the doorway, shrugged, and crossed the wide reception area to the conference room.

  Everyone was already assembled, waiting, and Chuck Rector, at the far end of the table, was pontificating. “All that I’m saying is that if each editor simply cut ten pages—only ten pages—from each of his or her books, I estimate that we could save close to eight hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars per year.”

  Gerald saw Pam Mantiss roll her eyes, but Lou Crinelli’s pockmarked and irregular face was turning deep red. If anyone could take Pam’s place it might someday be Lou. It was his first list meeting, and it looked as if he, like the tape on Mission Impossible, might self-destruct. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” he said. Crinelli was pretty rough around the edges, but he was a truly good and aggressive acquisitions editor, and in this case, he was absolutely right. Gerald cleared his throat and took his place at the Chippendale chair at the head of the table. Lou continued, “I suggest revisions that have to be made. Sometimes they’re cuts, sometimes not. How the hell can you cut ten pages from everything? Try cutting ten pages from The Sun Also Rises.”

  “I was merely pointing out the relationship between paper costs and the bottom line,” Chuck said, bristling. “You know, paper and binding costs have been spiraling, while we—”

  Gerald leaned forward. They all looked at him expectantly. When he had their full attent
ion, he began, “It’s always amused me to notice how few people really see themselves as others see them. For example, just in this room: Chuck probably thinks he’s intelligent. And Lou may think he’s attractive. And I, I think I’m a nice guy. But all three of us are deluded. So let’s drop opinions and get down to work.”

  And so the list meeting began.

  They had already waded through a few midlist titles and were on to the books that mattered. “Are we going to have the Peet Trawley book in time?” Gerald asked. The Trawley book was more important than ever.

  “Dead men tell no tales,” Dickie Pointer cracked, sotto voce.

  Pam shot him a poisonous look. “Yes, we’ll have it on time,” she told Gerald. He wondered at her new confidence. She’d been having a hard time of it, and—to tell the truth—it had made him more gleeful than it should have. For years Pam had edited and critiqued the work of others, always ending with: “I could write twice as good as that.” It had been nasty good fun to see her leveled. But Gerald needed this book, and she seemed calmer. Perhaps she could draft the Trawley trash.

  “We’ve got to have it,” Dickie growled. “As long as it says ‘Peet Trawley’ and has an omega on the cover, it’ll sell. But we’ve got to deliver on time. I don’t want to be pissing off my booksellers.”

  “You’ll have it,” Pam assured him.

  “Well, at least the rollout on it is automatic,” Amy said. “We have a good marketing plan. We’ll just trumpet this as Peet Trawley’s last book.”

  “The fuck you will,” Pam Mantiss said.

  Amy looked at her. “But I—”

  “Peet left several manuscripts,” Pam announced. “They might take a little more editing, but this isn’t his last book.”

  “Ha!” crowed Dickie. “It’s like V. C. Andrews. The longer she’s dead, the more she’s written.”

  Interesting, Gerald thought. Pam, it seemed, has found a sideline. Well, it would be good for the house. “Am I the only one who needs a coffee?” Gerald asked calmly. He hit the silent buzzer under the table with his foot, and Mrs. Perkins opened the door. After everybody’s complicated coffee orders were given, but before Mrs. Perkins and Andrea returned, the plans and positioning for Peet’s book were completed. No blood had been spilled. Well, Gerald thought, only twenty-seven more to go. Would that they were all dead authors. There was a lot of it going around. Hadn’t the late Lucille Ball just penned an autobiography? Actually, he noticed from the agenda, the next one was too.

  “This next one is a truly magnificent book. I hope you all read it,” he said, looking around the table. Dickie read very little, Chuck less. “But there is no way we can do this book without significant cuts,” Gerald declared, his hand on the outrageously high pile of the Duplicity manuscript.

  “Mrs. O’Neal still says it’s out of the question,” Pam admitted. She was bitter that he’d forced her to make the acquisition.

  “Did you tell her it’s out of the question for us to publish it at this length?” Gerald barked. Pam didn’t even blink, merely nodded and shrugged. He turned to Chuck Rector. “What would this cost?”

  Rector shrugged. “Minimum, thirty dollars,” he said.

  Gerald felt as if his head might explode. The trend was clearly toward shorter, cheaper novels. He turned to Pam. He hated vulgarities, but he had to exclaim. “Mind and mustache of Muhammad! We can’t put a thirty-dollar price tag on a first novel. It absolutely can’t be sold that way, if it can be sold at all. Are you certain you can’t get her to revise it?” He had to have this book on this list. He’d authorized Pam to pay anything reasonable, though Senior would despise him if he didn’t.

  Wendy Brennon cleared her throat. “You know, I think there is a tremendous angle on this book. First of all, it will appeal to women as well as men. The title alone is going to do that,” she said. “We also have this wonderful human-interest story: The Book That Refused to Die, Even Though the Author Did. I think I can get People to do a “Pages” story on it. And if the mother will go on Oprah and Sally and Ricki Lake and, you know, cry a little bit, well, I think we really have something here.”

  Gerald didn’t let anything register on his face, but he was pleased. That was what he had hired Wendy for. She’d better find some equally good angles for his book. Then Dickie Pointer spoke up. “Yeah, yeah. Publicity is swell, but the book’s too big. People want little reads. Even twenty-five dollars is too much, especially for a first novel. The thing is too literary, and even if it hits, it’s a oner: There’s no follow-up. After all, she’s dead.” Then Dickie grinned and shot a glance at Pam. “Unless you find a sequel in her attic, too, Pam.”

  Pam ignored his gibe and looked sour. “All right. We know the chains aren’t going to take this book. That’s clear from the beginning. So it’s got to be the independents. I say we pass. She won’t let us cut it. Fuck her.”

  “Fuck the poor bereaved mother?” Crinelli asked with wide eyes.

  “Fuck yourself,” Pam said.

  “Children, children,” Gerald warned. “Look, I want this book. And it can be sold. We make it an event, send out advance reader copies to the literary bookstores. They’ll hand-sell it. And we can get some blurbs. Who among the literati owe us a favor?”

  “Who cares? I don’t care if you get a blurb from the Holy Father himself,” Dickie said. Since the pope had written a book, there had been a lot of pope jokes. The nine-million-dollar advance Random House had paid spurred some to call the book “Poprah.” Dickie turned and looked directly at Gerald. “How many copies are you going to ask my reps to sell? If you do a first printing of more than two thousand, you’re crazy. And trust me, there’ll be a second coming before we do a second printing.”

  Wendy spoke again. She was the only one who seemed to Gerald to be calm, but then, she hadn’t worked with any of these people long enough to hate them. “I think we can get some really good reviews on this,” she said. “All it takes is the front page of the New York Times Book Review for this novel to really—”

  “Now there’s a revelation,” Dickie said nastily. “You put my address book in a review on the front page of the book review and we’ll get three hundred thousand hardcover sales.”

  Pam leaned across the table toward Dickie. “If you could read instead of just talk, you’d know this book is that fucking good,” she said. “It could get a Times cover. But the mother’s a pain in the ass.”

  Gerald cleared his throat. He didn’t want things to deteriorate with Dickie before they got to Gerald’s own book. He was going to have to hit him with an undeliverable quota on that one. “Okay,” he said, “regrettably we take the book at its current length. We print five thousand copies. Dick, I’m asking you to get four thousand out there. That means you’ll probably come in with thirty-four hundred. Wendy, let’s test your enthusiasm to see what you can do on the ‘mothers-whose-daughters-write-books-and-commit-suicide’ talk circuit.” He raised his brows. “Pam, see who you can blow to get respected writers to give us a blurb.”

  Pam made a moue. “Dickie, can I borrow your knee pads?” she asked dryly. She looked around the table. “Does anyone have Saul Bellow’s private phone number?” Nobody laughed.

  Gerald looked at his agenda. “Okay, so now let’s talk about something that could make us money,” he said, moving the meeting on. “We’ve got this first Jude Daniel novel.”

  The atmosphere around the table immediately perked up; Dickie actually smiled. “What we need for this,” Dickie said, “is a fabulous cover. Can we show the three kids’ graves, with the bitch crying over them?”

  The man was a ghoul. And an obvious thinker, which to Gerald was a bigger sin. “Perhaps we don’t have to be quite so literal,” Gerald suggested. “But a cover is going to be very important. Do we already have Eddie working on something?”

  Pam nodded. “This has got to be a really classy preprint, sent out to our hot list. There’s already a lot of industry buzz on it. Some people are pissed off that they didn’t g
et a chance to bid on it. It’s a page-turner. It’s got sex, murder, and yet it’s a great woman’s read. This could be a lot bigger than Miller’s The Good Mother”

  “Maybe we could retitle it The Bad Mother” Dickie joked.

  “What’s Jude Daniel like?” Wendy asked.

  “The guy is a publicist’s wet dream,” Pam assured her. “Here’s the pitch: a handsome, sexy, sensitive man who truly understands what it’s like to live in a woman’s skin.”

  “Women writers used to rule soft fiction, but in the last five years, that’s changed,” Gerald said. “Grisham and Waller are writing the kind of books that women used to write, and now men as well as women are reading them. Jude Daniel is a part of that sea change: I think this could be our Horse Whisperer!”

  “As my grandmother used to say, ‘From your lips to God’s ears,’” Lou joked. “But I’m not so sure. I don’t know if women want to read about a kid killer, and I don’t know if men want to read about a woman.”

  “Yeah?” Pam asked. “Grisham didn’t seem to have too much trouble getting them to read The Client: That was a woman protecting a boy from kid killers.”

  “A fluke.”

  “It’s a great read, Lou,” Pam said, her voice rising. “Your grandmother would love it.”

  Gerald turned to Dickie. “We’re going for a super release here,” he said. “Thanks to Pam we got the book at a good price and we can afford to push the hell out of it. This one’s got to go out of the ballpark. What are you thinking of lining up?” he asked Amy.

  “Well, we can do a twelve-book in-store display and dump, and maybe a contest.”

  “Yeah,” Dickie said. “Kill your kid and win a free plea bargain.” Amy laughed.

  “We’ll try to tie it into a sweepstakes or something. And if the guy can schmooze, if he can talk, we can do a ten-city tour,” Wendy added.