BESTSELLERS & BEST FRIENDS
My book publishing blog, with murder mysteries woven through it.
If this is your first visit, be sure to start with “1. Let’s do it!”
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Randy was a one-person shop, except for a paid internship he annually offered to a lucky graduate of the Columbia University Publishing Course.
Randy’s internship was a deep dive into subsidiary rights, the global network demanded of it, and a lawyer-like understanding of contracts. Of the largest eight book publishers today, six of them have a rights director who once held that intern slot with Randy.
And if you ever wondered why book publishing might have a diversity issue….
In 1989, that intern was Gen Grau. 1989 was more than 15 years after burglars broke into the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee, half of President Richard Nixon’s cabinet was jailed, Woodward and Bernstein became famous, the Watergate hearings revealed the horrific corruption throughout Washington, DC, and the New York Times fought to publish the secret Pentagon Papers.
All that horror and craziness was fading into history. And getting well behind us.
Until a manuscript was suddenly submitted to the major book publishing houses.
And, oh boy, what a manuscript it was. Supposedly, it reported in critical detail about what really happened back in those Watergate years. The manuscript claimed that Nixon’s corruption, the inept Howard Hunt, goofy G. Gordon S. Lilly, the Congressional hearings—all of that was simply diversion caused by China so that nobody would spot China’s real plan to dominate North America within the next 25 years.
After several fierce rounds of bidding, Gene Grau, an editor over at Random House, acquired the manuscript for publication.
Now here’s the thing, back then, the courts were good about allowing The New York Times, The Washington Post, and various book publishers to freely publish.
But this manuscript exposed the names of CIA operatives and the traitorous corporate CEOs playing ball with China. The dangers to national security were just too great. On that the courts were in full agreement.
The feds suddenly raided the author’s (whoever he/she was) home in Brooklyn and safely secured all files, notes, and what was assumed to be the only copy of the manuscript.
(Remember, this is back when manuscripts were only on paper. Nothing digital.)
Yet at the moment that the government agents were at the author’s home, another (and only other) copy of the manuscript was with a bicycle courier who was delivering the manuscript to Random House, to the attention of its acquiring editor, Gene Grau.
You see what’s going to happen here, right?
Instead of the manuscript going to:
Gene Grau
c/o Random House
It went to:
Gen Grau
c/o Randy House
The bicycle courier was secretly followed by somebody. That somebody saw the courier hand over a large manila envelope to Gen at the door of Randy’s building. And an hour later, that somebody watched Gen leave Randy’s building and head home to her apartment with a large manila envelope.
Meanwhile, up in his loft, Randy realized what had been delivered to him by mistake. Holy shit! It was the manuscript that had been all over the news!
He called Gene at Random House to tell him what had happened. An hour later, government agents arrived at Randy’s to secure the second and only other copy of the manuscript. Phew! The nation is saved, or at least its network of spies throughout North America and China.
Meanwhile, several blocks aways, Gen is murdered at her apartment by a spy working for one side or the other (it didn’t matter which). That killer spy then grabbed the large manila envelope which he assumed contained the very dangerous, outlawed manuscript.
Sadly, what was really in that envelope was the manuscript of an erotic novel written by Gen’s weird stepmother.
An awful, awful, stupid, stupid, what-are-the-odds moment!
And that was it. The New York City police were instructed not to investigate Gen’s murder. Anything to do with the mysterious manuscript was shut down and swept under the rug for the sake of “national security.” Mum’s the word. All that stuff. Gen was simply gone, purposely forgotten, not even an asterisk next to her name. Absolutely heartbreaking in every way possible.
I went with Randy to Gen’s services in Boston. And geez, after the service, her stepmother pitched me her erotic novel. (There are moments in life when you think that things, or people, just can’t get worse. And then they do.)
That annual dinner with Randy in Bologna? We always toast Gen. With great fondness and regret.
And I always wondered if in that hour between Randy calling Gene at Random House, and the government agents showing up to grab the manuscript, did Randy photocopy it? I never asked him.
Back then, Randy and I had to somehow move on from Gen’s death.
Same goes for this blog.
Tomorrow: One day at lunch.
