Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed

by Harlan Ellison

  So one day about a year ago, when I was late getting a story in to Ed—which is usually the case, I’m always Harlequin late, poor Ed—and I was on the long distance line trying to con and jolly him into extending my deadline by a few days, I said to him, “Ed, tell me something: why is it, when you run the kind of apparently troublemaking stories I write, and you keep getting so many subscription cancellations and rotten letters from these turkeys, why is it you keep running my work?”

  And Ed (who is an even tougher sonofabitch than I am, though his gentle and gentlemanly manner covers it so well only Audrey knows it for sure) said, “Well, I’ll tell you…even if I didn’t think they were good stories, which I do, I’d keep running your work and keep putting your name on the cover, because every time I run one of your stories I have twice as many people sign on as I do cancel.”

  I gotta confess he stopped me with that one.

  I sat there grinning wryly. And shaking my head.

  He could have buttered me, or he could have said, well, kiddo, someone has to publish your shit, or he could have just shrugged it off. But he didn’t. He hit me right in my truth. And I flashed on that scene in the movie The Longest Yard where Burt Reynolds—in the words of the scenarist, Tracy Keenan Wynn—says, “You know what the trouble with my life has been? I’ll tell you. I’ve got my shit together. I’ve always had my shit together. I just can’t lift it.”

  So here comes chill, truthful Ed Ferman, about two years ago, saying to me, “Let’s do a ‘Harlan Ellison’ issue of F&SF.”

  “What do I have to do to deserve it, Ed…drop dead?”

  “No, just write a story.”

  That seemed easy enough.

  But, well, hell, I didn’t get it done, so he did the Damon Knight issue first, and I can’t beef about that; Damon’s a good old boy and even though he thinks I disremember the pasts we shared, I like to see these venerable father-figures get an accolade from time to time. And finally my time has rolled around, much to the chagrin and annoyance of the turkeys.

  But here comes Ed again, even after I’d said I wanted to do three stories for the issue, not just one, because Ray Bradbury had done two for his issue a few years ago, but nobody had ever done three, and I hoped that by doing three it would annoy that growing multitude that conceives of me as an arrogant, gauche loudmouth who never knows when to leave well enough alone…but even so, here comes Ed suggesting I do an “introduction” to the issue, just like the anthologies and collections I put together. Occurs to me that Ed Ferman has a thick vein of suicidal behavior in him.

  So I’m sitting here in Geo. Alec Effinger’s apartment on Prytania Street in New Orleans, while Bev and George and gorgeous Susan are out hustling for beads and doubloons at the Rex parade, it’s Mardi Gras and I’m inside writing words for Ed Ferman instead of having a helluva good time goofing off, and I’m wondering just how much truth Ed and you readers can handle in the honorable name of “upfront.”

  And I decide, screw it; let them have it all, because it’s been a shitty few months and maybe just this once the clowns who are pissed off that Silverberg and Malzberg and Lupoff and Effinger and the rest of us don’t want “sci-fi” on our books will get sufficiently doused with cold truth so they’ll stop looking at those of us who write this stuff with that peculiar brand of tunnel vision that is half deification and half hatred.

  (Now what the hell’s he angry about? Every time I turn around that creep Ellison is shooting off his big mouth about some fancied crime or other. Can’t open my morning paper or turn on the box without hearing that strident voice complaining about somedamnthing or other. What the devil does he have to be angry at? He makes a lot of money, he gets laid regularly, there are even people dumb enough to think he has some writing talent. And here he’s got this whole bloody magazine devoted to feeding his twisted ego. You’d think he’d have enough grace just to say something short and polite and let his stories do the talking for him. But no, he’s angry again! Now what?)

  Angry? Heaven forbid, gentle readers. I wouldn’t want to disturb your sleep.

  Nevertheless, in the spirit of creative troublemaking, come with me to the October 4th, 1976 issue of Publishers Weekly, the “bible of the book industry.” In the pages of PW one can gauge one’s stature in the publishing world, assess one’s worth with one’s peer-group and, more importantly, with the plantation owners who keep us poor wretches laboring in their fields.

  Let us glance at the cover of the October 4th, 1976 issue of PW, where we see a full-page ad for Sterling Hayden’s first novel, Voyage. Putnam’s has taken this ad, as they have the next ten pages, to announce their winter list. It’s unveiling time for one of the major publishers, and they’re stating for all the world to see the importance of their forthcoming titles. Go with me, then, on this voyage of status and hype.

  I promise you it’ll be worth the trip.

  Now. We start with Sterling Hayden. He gets almost one hundred large-type words of thrilling copywriters’ adrenaline, including announcements that Voyage is a full selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, paperback rights have been sold for more than a half-million dollars, there will be TV appearances by the author, as well as major national advertising, publicity & promotion, not to mention a 50,000 copy first printing. Add to all this a snappy perspective photo of the book itself and the fact that it’s on the front cover of PW, and only the dullest among us can fail to perceive that this is a B*I*G B*O*O*K!!!

  Well, okay. Hayden can write. Wanderer, back in 1963, his autobiography, was a smashing book. He deserves all this attention. No complaints.

  Now we open the issue and plunge pell-mell into Putnam’s winter list, in order of importance and (as Putnam’s views it) saleability.

  Pages 2 and 3 contain six books, three to a page…still with full-cover photos of each book, titles set in large black, eye-catching type, each one with a dense block of promotional copy, and each one bearing the potent slug-line, “Major Advertising & Promotion.” Among these books are a biography of Clark Gable, a “dazzling biography that reads like the most romantic novel,” and a book of “startlingly intimate portraits” titled Ginger, Loretta and Irene Who? Each of these six is trumpeted as being the forerunner of a motion picture version or is to be accompanied by TV appearances by the author or is a full selection of this book club or that. Impressive.

  Pages 4 and 5, another six. Each one to receive “Major Advertising & Promotion,” another six full-cover photos, six more blocks of breathless advertising copy, and on and on.

  Page 6. Six books on one page, but still with full-color photos, albeit smaller, of course. The titles say it all: Nine Moons Wasted by Marianne Lamont; This Other Eden by Marilyn Harris; Foxglove Summer by Naidra Grey; Sweet’s Folly by Fiona Hill; and more hype copy. Page 7 has two more romances, one by Jean Plaidy and one by Claire Rayner, as well as a Jack Douglas book of funny “misadventures,” whatever that means. Three on this page, each with “Major Advertising & Etcetera.” Full cover photos. Lotta hype. Quotes.

  Page 8 and page 9: six and six, including such well-promoted winners as Moon Signs by Sybil Leek; Sinister People, The Looking-Glass World of the Left-Hander; Gilbert and Sullivan and Their Victorian World; and a book of myths and heroes of the Viking Age. Each has a cover photo; each has a block of copy, each has its title in easily read heavy black headline type.

  On page 9, four-fifths of the page is devoted to six titles, two westerns and four mysteries. Each one has a full cover photo, each one has a big bold title, each one has a block of promotional copy wherein the words spectacular, taut, exciting, delightful, gripping, intriguing and exciting new appear with the frequency of chocolate chips in a Famous Amos Cookie.

  Now pay close attention.

  At the bottom of page 9, positionally only the minutest fraction more important than the books on gardening and microwave cookery that live on page 10, are four titles in the bottom one-fifth of the page. These four books are labeled with a genre designation as no o
ther books in this 54 book list have been ghettoized! The label, not to put too fine or obvious a point on it, is SCIENCE FICTION.

  The four books are Spider Robinson’s first novel, the new F.M. Busby and the new Poul Anderson and…

  Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber.

  There are no cover photos. There is no advertising hype. There is no explanatory copy block. The titles are small. No words like “exciting” or “taut” or even “spectacular.” Just the title of the book, the author’s name, the Library of Congress catalog number, date of publication and price.

  Fritz Leiber’s first novel in eight years, down at the very bottom of the next-to-last page of his publishers’ seasonal trumpeting? Fritz Leiber, the finest fantasist in the world, a man whose work has influenced every writer of imaginative literature since the Thirties. Wonderful, magical Fritz Leiber, before whom Bradbury and Sturgeon and Norton and Goldman and Barth and Vonnegut bow, not to mention Robinson, Busby, Anderson and even yours truly, the maddest egomaniac of them all. Fritz Leiber, very likely the best of all of us, the man who has won more awards than anyone else in the genre, the man whose words have lifted this too-often wretched category to Olympian heights more times than anyone cares to mention. Fritz Leiber’s first novel in eight years is buried at the bottom of Putnam’s discard pile, secure in its 1200-copy library sale, without Major Advertising & Promotion and screw the old man!?!†

  Fritz Leiber’s first novel in eight years isn’t as worthy of attention as the first novel of an actor, no matter how well it’s written…it isn’t as important as Sybil Leek’s astrological bullshit…it isn’t as important as a pair of westerns…it isn’t as important as a six-pack of insipid romantic novels…?

  Why is that asshole Ellison angry?

  Why does he insist “science fiction” be deleted from his books, and nowhere be permitted in advertising or promotion of what he writes? (Though God knows it’s virtually impossible to stop half-witted collegiate reporters from slapping “sci-fi” into the headline when they interview him for college lectures.)

  Ellison is angry, gentle readers, because Phyllis Schlafly has unlimited access to The Johnny Carson Show where her observations on Freedom vs. Equality are only slightly less illuminating than David Letterman’s views about The Ethical Structure of the Universe and one of our finest young “sci-fi” writers can’t fight off the medical collection agencies trying to collect from his last three major operations while he waits with happy thoughts about his fourth exploratory, coming up next month. The big mouth is angry because the bestseller lists include the mediocre dribblings of Leon Uris, Rod McKuen, Jacqueline Susann, Allen Drury and Harold Robbins, while another of our giants of “sci-fi” lives in a one-room apartment in a slum section of a major American city, sitting on the edge of his bed with his typewriter on a kitchen chair, his Hugos shoved away on a high shelf because he hasn’t room for them in that cramped space where he exists in poverty.

  You don’t know me. You don’t know any of us. You live in your little Utopia of dreams, not realizing that the men and women you totemize at conventions return, in too many cases, to lives of anonymity and financial deprivation. You are instantly on your guard against any of us promoting ourselves, “selling out” to make a decent living, without understanding that most of the terrific publishers whom you revere, still pay the biggest name authors little better than they did twenty-five years ago, when a loaf of bread was 13 cents and a cup of coffee was a nickel. You buy ripoff cassettes of the writers’ speeches and readings, without understanding that you are contributing to the theft of annuities. You think it mercenary and bad taste when writers demand payment for their appearances at conventions. You think all of us live in crystal palaces, surrounded by slavish toadies who do our bidding for the glory of being in The Presence Magical.

  And when one or another of us says, “Why, when I’m writing brilliant novels of deep human perceptivity, does Perry Rhodan sell millions of copies while my books go out of print?” and then opts out of the rat race, you bare your fangs and run white feather numbers on us. Traitor to the Cause! Quisling! Coward! Sour grapes!

  You don’t know me, and I don’t know you.

  I don’t know any of you who write me letters and tell me either how my stories have altered your lives immeasurably or how my stories are sick and twisted and how I obviously hate women because I had a dog eat a girl in one of them.

  How can you know people who refuse to permit your humanity? How can you relate to people who either see you as a monster whose works are created solely to shock and corrupt the Natural Order, or who deify you like the shade of Voltaire?

  How can I know you, when you choose to read craziness into my words? When you think every story I write is an accurate and faithful representation of my life? When, if I write about homosexuality or drug addiction or venality or violence, you start your imbecilic rumor-mill that I’m gay, a junkie, greedy beyond rationality or a crazed killer?

  Do I jest?

  Several years ago, at the last sf convention I attended without being paid a speaking fee to appear, the World Convention in Washington, D.C., I found myself quite late one night, wasted and exhausted, standing in front of an elevator, waiting for the car to arrive to take me upstairs to my floor, to my room, to my bed, to blessed sleep. Understand: it was three or four in the morning, I was weary beyond belief, and minding my own business. As I stood there waiting, a rather large, fleshy young man festooned with buttons saying things like FIAWOL and TANSTAAFL and SF FANS EAT THEIR YOUNG approached the elevator.

  When he saw me, he did a double-take. Then an expression I’ve come to recognize and despise crossed his face. It was that insipid melding of antagonism and superciliousness that I have learned from bitter experience precedes some smartass remark intended to make the fan think he’s into clever repartee. As these remarks usually emanate from terminal acne teen-agers with overactive thyroids and underdeveloped manners, I have yet to be gifted with a line that does not reek of cliche and sophomorism.

  (You don’t know me. I’m forty-two years old, and I’ve spent a good part of my life with the wittiest, cleverest, most innovative people of my time. I’ve heard the best and the brightest indulging their conversational muses. Some great lines, a lot of whacky linkages, terrific humor and originality. And you…you pishers…you really think some derivative, cornball insult out of St. Louis or Joplin is going to be new to me? Be even the fleetingest momentarily clever so you’ll receive the dollop of cheap attention your miserable little ego demands? Don’t be ridiculous. When you can beat Groucho Marx or Bella Abzug or Mel Torme with a clever line, then you can come around and try to bug me. Until then, stay in the Pony League.)

  The elevator arrived, the doors opened, I entered and the beefy adolescent did the same. I pushed the button for my floor, which was quite high up in the building, but the kid didn’t push a button for his floor. If I thought about it—and you must remember I was really out of it, just hanging against the wall with my eyes down and my energy-level low—I suppose I concluded he was on the same floor as I.

  But no sooner had the doors closed than the kid struck a pose. Arms folded, legs apart, staring at me with insolence, as if about to say something devastating. I hung against the wall, thinking, Gimme a little slack, willya, kid. No bullshit tonight. I’m too tired.

  But the rudeness of that kind of simp is beyond measure. And beyond logic or restraint. He stood there arrogantly and said, “You’re a lot shorter than I thought you’d be.”

  I ignored him. I was in no mood.

  Anyone playing with a full deck would have taken the hint. It was by no means a subtle hint. I clearly didn’t want to be messed with. But like so many of his type, stupidity and ill-justified arrogance make unsatisfactory bedmates, and he thought he was making points because I hadn’t told him to shut up, or punched him out, or done something that would permit him to lie to his friends about how he’d “destroyed Ellison.”

  So he kept it
up. Kept insulting me—a total stranger—all the way up to my floor.

  Then, when the elevator slowed and was stopping, I looked up and moved toward the front doors of the cage. He stepped in front of me, arms akimbo. I stood there as the elevator rose to a stop, and waited for him to move, but he didn’t. He just stood in front of me, facing me, hands on his hips, as if daring me to do something. It not only became clear to me at this point that he didn’t live on the same floor as I, but that he very likely had taken the entire elevator trip just to piss me off.

  As the doors opened behind him, without even looking, I reached out very quickly with my right hand, and closed my fingers around his throat. Not hard enough to crush the sucker’s windpipe, but hard enough to propel him backward easily. Out of the elevator, around in a half-circle, and pushed him back into the elevator, just as the doors closed. It was all done very smoothly, very quickly, and with an absolute minimum of emotional involvement. He had been an impediment to my progress toward a good night’s sleep, and I had simply moved him.

  But as I turned around from the closed elevator doors, I saw what I had missed seeing when the doors had first opened—probably because my eyes were downcast and I was concentrating on grabbing the simp’s throat. Standing there, mouths open, gaping at the sight of the killer and his prey, was a group of six or eight fans who had apparently left a party and were on their way down to the lobby. They had seen the doors open, and without warning the crazed Ellison had attacked this poor, defenseless fan.

  I said nothing to them, simply turned down the corridor and went to my room and went to bed.

  But the next day…

  The rumor that was all over the convention hotel was that Ellison had thrown a fan down an elevator shaft.