PU B L I CAT I O N
I N
T H E
AG E
O F
N E G AT I O N
Humility and Humiliation BY JOHN TOTTENHAM
Perhaps you remember me… No, that wasn’t right. It was senseless to open a letter of entreaty by suggesting that I was forgettable, especially when I knew only too well that the party in question would remember me. Hello Charlie, it’s your old friend here… No, that was too presumptuous: only his friends addressed him by that diminutive. I had met Charles a few times at social gatherings; our brief exchanges had been awkward, and I always got the impression that he was itching to get away from me so that he could talk to somebody more successful. Hello Charles... I didn’t like the sound of that either. There was something both wheedling and slightly invasive about that “Hello.” It bespoke an over-awareness of the rejection I was inevitably courting by penning this missive of reintroduction. But maybe I was reading too much into it, and he probably wouldn’t be reading anything into it. Hello… But I never opened a communication with “Hello” or “Hi.” Anachronistic as it was—a throwback to epistolary days—I usually opened my emails with “Dear.” Dear Charles… Charles Wersing certainly wasn’t dear to me; in fact, I regarded him as the enemy. He was a “gatekeeper” of the literary establishment, and he stood firmly in the way of the likes of me. But let it ride for the moment, I needed to get this thing started. I hope that you haven’t been temporarily blinded by the delight of seeing my name in your mailbox… No, that wouldn’t do at all: a facetious allusion to any awkwardness that might exist between us wasn’t going to do me any
Enough of the disingenuous groveling, for fuck’s sake; he should feel honored to receive a solicitation from me. Get straight to the point… I’ll get straight to the point. I finally acknowledged that I had no grasp of plot, character or dialogue, and decided to write a novel, and that’s mostly what I’ve been working on for the last four years. While writing the novel one of my greatest concerns was that once it was finished I wouldn’t do anything about getting it published, and much as I feared, that is turning out to be the case. If I put one percent of the amount of time and care into putting it out there as I put into the work itself, then I might get somewhere. But I find it hard to do even that much. That wasn’t getting straight to the point, and I was laying on the self-deprecation too thickly. I could hear Charles sighing with impatience as he waded through this irrelevant preamble. He didn’t need to know about all that; he’d heard it all before. It would probably be fairly easy to get it published by a local small press but the nature of the work dictates that it requires the validation of a reputable imprint, or at least a good independent press. If you read it, you’d see what I meant—but don’t worry, I’m not going to subject you to that. He didn’t need to hear about that either, and the suggestion that it was within my power to subject him to anything had to be removed. I’m not even going to attempt to subject you to that… But it was true that the nature of the work demanded that it should be published by a reputable press. If it was published by a small press, it would look petty; if it was published by a major press, it would look less petty. And that “fairly easy” made me uneasy: Perhaps it wouldn’t be “fairly easy” to get it published by
I’ll get straight to the point. I finally acknowledged that I had no grasp of plot, character or dialogue, and decided to write a novel, and that’s mostly what I’ve been working on for the last four years. favors. Despite the fact that he’d never shown any interest in me or my work, and had walked away from me at parties, Charles Wersing had always snubbed me suavely. He was a man of polished manners, who used his politeness as a weapon, as might be expected of a highly successful New York literary agent; and we did have a mutual friend whom Charles respected enough that a courteous reply, at least, would be guaranteed, even if it was a courteous rejection. So tone it down a bit, be friendly… Since we haven’t corresponded in five years, the time has come to bug you again…
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a small press; perhaps I was deceiving myself about that. Since my hopes haven’t yet been crushed, I thought why not start at the top—which is why I’m writing to you—and work my way down. This arbiter of taste had already had so much smoke blown up his ass that a fire alarm went off every time he broke wind. The flattery sounded weak and insincere, and it was. I realize that you must be exhausted from the polite pesterings of needy scribblers and that the sight of a fresh solicitation in your mailbox might induce at the very least a sinking feeling.
