120. Aaron and I meet continued

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As I was saying yesterday, I slid the hidden switch.  The bookshelf turned.  The hidden room was revealed.  I walked in with Aaron behind me.

I took a deep and perhaps final breath, and suddenly—and purposely—fell to the floor.

BLAM!

The gun went off.  Detective Rocco’s gun. 

Sort of as planned.  There was no warning from her. 

My ears rang. There was blood on me and on the floor.  I could taste it. I spit. 

And I looked at one very dead Aaron on the floor next to me.  His bright pink sport coat, now with wet red on it.  The red growing larger.

“Got him,” said Rocco, “And got everything he said on tape.”

Another police officer, the one hidden in the bedroom showed up.  As did the one hidden down the hall beyond the elevator.

I was confused.  “But when he shot the aquarium, why didn’t you—”

“It sounded like an aquarium getting shot,” Rocco cut me off, “Not a publisher.”

My plan worked.  I guess.  I was confused.  And uncertain.

Tomorrow:  Maybe, maybe not

119. I meet with Aaron

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The buzzer in Randy’s old loft buzzed at 8 p.m.  I poked my head out of a window and looked down at the building’s front door. There he was.  I buzzed him in.

I took a deep breath, waited a few minutes, and opened the loft’s door as Aaron stepped off the elevator.  

I offered him a drink, turned my back, and went to grab my martini.

“No thanks,” he said, “This is all I need.”

I turned around. He had a gun in his hand.  It was pointed at me.

That was a first!

I don’t know one handgun from the other but it sure looked deadly.

His finger was actually on the trigger.  Holy shit.  What if he sneezes?

“What’s going on,” I asked, my voice cracking.

He nodded to a chair, “Sit.”

“May I?” I held up my martini.

“Sure.”

I sat.

“So here’s what going on.  You’re going to jump out of the window just like your friend,” he nodded his head toward a specific bookcase, “I know all about the secret room, I read your stupid blog.  I’ve already written your farewell note.  Yep, I broke into your blog. Worst security ever.  Notice how it’s not posted last couple of days? That was me messing around with it.”

Damn! I was wondering, couldn’t figure out why my blog wasn’t posting.

“The story will be that you missed your friend something horribly, your wife is out of town, it follows up perfectly on your last few emotional posts. Vége!” He laughed.

I sipped my martini.

“And you’re half drunk. Perfect,” he smiled.

Then he suddenly sneezed!

I pulled in my shoulders, tightened up, waited for the bang.  Nothing.  Geez! I caught my breath. I had to focus.

“I’ve got questions,” I said.  I figured why not try, to at least keep him talking.

“Sure, ask away, makes no difference now.”

“Who’s Lajos Antal?”

“As you figured out in your blog, he’s Allan Jatos.  Like you, he enjoyed a good anagram. 

He came up with the name when his first agent, Irene Skolnick, said she couldn’t sell the Hungarian name.  Just wasn’t working, and as she pointed out, he was, after all, writing solid American tales.”

“Irene was his agent?”  Good god, a small world moment.  (Recall this post.)

“Is he dead?”

“Yep, dead and buried, just like you saw.”  He sighed, “I told Katie not to do that damn gravestone.  Just in case.  And you, you idiot, turned out to be the case.”  Aaron shook his head.”

Recall this post.

“Was he murdered?”

“Depends on how you look at it.  He caught Covid in that first fatal wave in early 2020.  But Katie chose not to do anything about it.  She pretended to call his doctor, but never did.  She just kept him in his bedroom.  Guy couldn’t breath.  It was ugly to watch.  Let’s put it his way – he died of a combination of Covid and purposeful neglect.”

“I don’t get it.  His wife, Katie, why?”

“She’s a great writer. Comes from nothing.  A fucked up family.  Got a job working for Irene then—”

“She worked for Irene?” Unbelievable. I suddenly had that image from all those years ago of Irene standing, after dinner in Tarrytown, in her underwear.

“Yep.  That’s how Katie and Allan got to know each other, through Irene.  Allan was much older and oh boy, Katie was as sexy back then as she is now.  She didn’t have any money.  He was nuts about her.  He shared his writing with her, she edited it, perfected it.  Marrying him could give her a life she wasn’t going to get otherwise.  Lots of money, nice house.  It worked.  Though she never really loved him.”

“And you? When and how the hell did you show up?”

“Larry and I would go up to Tarrytown for drinks.  Sometimes stay overnight.  The four of us got to know each other well,” he smiled,” Katie and I very well.” 

“But you and Larry were married.  You did the lifelong vows thing.  Till death do us part, blah, blah.”

“I was falling in love with Katie at the same time Larry was driving me nuts. 

Larry and I had our tiny one room studio on 13th Street, just a block from his office and right next to the hospital emergency room on 7th and 13th. 

The pandemic hit.  Larry was on the phone in all these meetings.  He never left the apartment.  I overheard all his work calls.  I saw his emails. I knew the players.  I understood all the publishing lingo.  Hell, I could finish his sentences.  And to boot, our voices were similar.”

I saw where this was going.  What was it that Teena said?  Something like, “In this pandemic,, my co-workers could be dead for all I know.  And it’s just their kids, parents, cat, or kidnapper on the other end using the keyboard.”

Aaron continued, “I could be Larry, and Katie could do Allan’s writing.  Katie and I love each other.  We didn’t need Allan. And with this stupid pandemic and everybody working from home, well, I could pretend to be Larry.  Katie and I now get all the royalties. We have all of Allan’s money without the losers we were stuck with before.”

He paused.  He seemed to reflect, pleased with what they had pulled off

“Do you mind,” I asked, pointing to my empty glass.

“Go ahead,” he kept the gun on me. 

My hands shook. It was difficult to pour the gin and vermouth, but easy to shake the tumbler. 

I sat back down.  “So, what about Larry?”

“Our apartment had access to a small roof.  I increasingly spent time up there, just to get away from Larry, just to get out of the one room we shared.  It so happens that nobody can see that section of the roof.  We used to sunbath up there, naked.”

I listened and sipped.

“During those early months of the Covid pandemic, I’d look over the roof’s railing, down to one of those refrigerated trucks in which they stored all the dead bodies. 

There was a guard stationed at the truck.  They’d roll out a body from the emergency room, the guard would look at paperwork, then the body went onto the truck. 

When the guard wasn’t doing that, he was dealing drugs.”

“What?”

“Yep, the pandemic was tough on the street drug supply.  Wherever those drugs come from, however they get to the buyers, that, like everything, was disrupted.  People weren’t out on the streets.

But this guy guarding the dead bodies was.  And I’d watch him from the roof.  He did a lot of business. 

He obviously wasn’t a good guy.  One night I peeked over the other side of the roof’s railing.  Down to the trash cans.  And an idea started to form.”

Now I saw it. “You killed Larry?  You pushed him off the roof.  You paid off the corrupt guard.  His body ended up on that truck.  No paperwork, no identification.”

Aaron smiled.  “Oh you are good!  Nearly blog-worthy,” he laughed.

I continued, “You pretended to be Larry.  Katie started to write the Allan Jacobs books.  Both of you—”

“They’re good, right?” Aaron interrupted me, “you’ve read the last four? The ones Katie wrote.”

I had to admit the prick was right. I took a deep breath, “They’re good.  Oh god, maybe even better.”

“It’s the editing,” Aaron burst out laughing.

I finished what I guessed was going to be my last martini.  Ever.

“He continued, “Then you, fucking Brallier, had to do your cute little visit to Dorothy Parker’s grave and blab to the world about it. 

You had to poke around.

You fucked up everything,” he did that awful smile again, “and now it’s time to fix everything. 

Lajos Antal / Allan Jatos

Let’s go. Stand up. Your drink’s done.  And I’m done talking.”

He pointed to the bookcase that was actually the door to the secret room.  The room with the window.  The window from which, as Randy had proven, a jump is fatal.

I hesitated.  Would this jerk really shoot me?  Right here?  Had he really ever shot anybody?  Does Aaron even know how to use that gun?   

“I don’t think so,” I said, “This ends now.”  I’m recalling classic TV shows and movies.  I’ve been in this script.  I looked Larry in the eyes, “It’s over Larry.  You’re a better man than—”

His hand jerked to the right.  BLAM! He shot the aquarium.

Glass shattered, water poured out, along with a few fish. 

Holy shit! He’s not messing around.

Now the gun was pointed at my head, not my body.

“You’re next.  I’ll blow apart your head.  Move!”

I figured another minute or two is better than just one more second of life.  Something might happen, Like a sudden earthquake.

I slid the hidden switch.  The bookshelf turned.  The hidden room was revealed.  I walked in with Aaron behind me.

Tomorrow:  to be continued

118. I am a very lucky father

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I signed off yesterday, saying “I’m thinking about what’s good in life, just in case.” After all, there’s something about seeing my supposedly alive favorite author’s grave, and that author’s gay editor’s husband making whoopee with that author’s wife (or might she be a widow?). Confusing!!!

So, onto what’s good in life — my children.

My daughter, Ruby, is much like me in all the good ways.  We “get” each other. And are thus equally annoying.  Best team ever.

My latest book and its dedication

And my son, Max, ended up working for a few years in publishing before his writing career took off.  Way off. 

(Whereas my writing, well, you’re reading it.  Sigh.)

That Max and I have both written books, has its moments.

Like when I went to Max’s autographing session at New York City’s Books of Wonder.  And a kid happened to walk in, looking for a copy of my Who Was Albert Einstein.  I made the most of my rare moment in Max’s enduring spotlight.

And there’s this video from a Los Angeles Barnes & Noble.

Me, right across the aisle from Max, keeping an eye on the kid just like 35 years ago.

Yep, lucky me, in so many ways.

Tomorrow:  Aaron and I meet. I’m nervous.

this video

117: Editor joke, Gustave Flaubert’s comma, and why I don’t have a beach house

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 The Classic Writer-and-Editor Joke

(OK, this is a bit mean, but we joked about writers and agents; it’s time for editors.)

A writer and an editor are stranded in the desert.  They’ve been crawling across the sand for days.

As they’re about to die of thirst, they come across an oasis. 

The writer jumps in and enthusiastically gulps the water. 

But when she looks up, she sees the editor pissing in the oasis.

The writer screams, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Making it better,” says the editor.

Gustave Flaubert’s comma

 Friends visited Gustave Flaubert on a Friday, asking him to join their weekend trip.  Flaubert declined, claiming he had work to do. 

When the friends returned on Sunday evening, Flaubert reported that work had gone very well.  Yet the friends saw he was at exactly the same place he was when they left—in the middle of a sentence, marked by a comma. 

Flaubert noted that on Saturday he changed the comma to a semicolon, and on Sunday he changed it back, thus making wonderful progress.

Why I Don’t have a Beach House

Years ago I was in our booth at the big book publishing convention (ABA), and a colleague brought over this woman who had an idea, and introduced us. 

I was publishing books-and-things, and she had a book-and-thing idea.  She showed me a mock-up of a small book and a handmade doll that looked like one of Santa’s elves. The elf came with the book.

She called it “Elf on a Shelf.” 

I thought it was the stupidest idea.  Couldn’t wait to get away from her aggressive pitch.  I made up an excuse to get out of the booth.

And that’s why I’m not posting this from my beautiful beach house.

Now for a biggie! I decided to get in touch with Aaron, who is both editor Larry’s husband and Katie Jatos’s hot lover.  But before I could, out of the blue, he emailed me via my website, saying he wanted to get together with me. 

Small world.

I suggested we meet in two days at Randy’s loft as I’m staying there (and I have a plan...oh lord).  Aaron wrote back, “I know where you are. I read your stupid blog.”

Tomorrow:  I’m nervous. I’m thinking about what’s good in life...just in case.

116. The writing of Tess’s Tree

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Perhaps the favorite book of mine is Tess’s Tree, the story of a girl who deals with the grief of losing her favorite tree.

For me, it’s also the story of how a book sometimes just perfectly happens.

There was a large maple tree outside the window of my office in our New England home of 23 years.  It was kindly planted there by someone now long gone.  I thought about now the tree would someday also be sadly gone, like too many people in my life.

Instead of doing whatever I should have been doing (taxes, emails, balancing the check book, etc.), I sat in my office thinking about how those who arrived prior to me, were now exiting.

My Mom and Dad, aunts and uncles, the parents of childhood friends.  I had reached that age.

Then Sally came home from her annual getaway with college friends.  She told me about how her friend Gail had to cut down a dying tree.  Gail’s daughter, Tess, loved the tree.  Her swing hung from it, and she played in its shade.  Tess was furious when it came down. 

Then, in all her grief, and all on her own, Tess decided to have a funeral for the tree.  Wow! 

I looked out my office window, nodded at the old tree, and started writing. 

The words flowed.  They just ran through my fingers and onto the screen. It felt so right.  An hour later I had a story, Tess’s Tree. 

What an amazing hour!  By publication of Tess’s Tree, only six words of that original manuscript had changed.  Which is unheard of.  Both ridiculous and remarkable. 

And I still consider it the second-best thing I ever wrote.  Hell of an hour.

This was mid-2000. A group of us in the Boston area hung out together.  We had a common love for books, but also a growing curiosity about digital opportunities, and what promise that might bring to publishing and storytelling.

One of that gang was Peter Reynolds, a wonderful educator, illustrator, and storyteller. He and his twin brother, Paul, owned and ran a smart and passionate company, Fablevision. And a bookstore, The Blue Bunny.  (Peter and Paul clearly live 48-hour days unlike my confining 24.)

Over a coffee (or maybe it was a glass of wine), Peter mentioned how he’d like to work with me on something. 

With Tess’s Tree, I thought I now had that something.  I sent the story to Peter.  He loved it.  Said he’d pause everything else he was working on and get to it.  

Peter’s agent, Holly McGhee, represented us.  And quickly sold it in an auction to the brilliant acquisition editor (and later, author and agent) Brenda Bowen at Harper where the wonderful editor Alyson Day escorted it to publication. (Alyson and I vowed to work together again….fingers crossed).

So in just five weeks, from my office to Peter to an agent to a publisher. And to publication a year later.  REMARKABLE!  As if some weird gods were at work.

These many years later, Tess’s Tree is no longer in print. But it lives online for free at TessTree.com.

Enjoy!  Because sometimes a book just perfectly happens.

Meanwhile, despite my vow, I’ve been thinking about what I know refer to as the “Jatos-wife-Antal-Chris-and-Aaron thing.”

I called Detective Josephine Rocco. 

You may remember her from when a mysterious (and awful) mystery writer was blaming me for multiple killings in the book industry. 

Rocco is tough, to the point, and easily annoyed by me.

The phone call went like this:

Me:  Jess Brallier here. You might remember—

Rocco:  I remember.

Me:  I thought I should call you because—

Rocco:  Agreed.  I’ve been reading your blog.

Me: (delightfully shocked that she subscribes to this): Really?  That’s—

Rocco:  Tomorrow, 10 a.m.

Me:  Let’s see, I’ve got a haircut—

She hung up.

Tomorrow: writer/editor joke, Gustave Flaubert’s comma, and why I don’t have a beach house

115. I may have messed up

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Here’s the problem with me writing a blog. I’m used to writing books.

When I write a manuscript for a book, I  re-write it and re-write it. For months. And twice that’s added up to years. 

Then Sally and/or a friend(s) reads it.  Then my agent does the same (a couple of times). 

Then it’s read by an editor (a couple of times) and a copyeditor and a proofreader and sometimes a sensitivity reader.  So that by the time anybody “out there” reads it, I’ve had a hundred moments to carefully consider what to share, and with what words and tone.

But with these blog postings, I just quickly type one each day and toss it “out there.”  What I forget when I’m edging toward something messy (murder, for example) is that whoever might be making the mess (the murderer, for example) could be reading what I’m posting.

Like you, dear reader, the killer is nearly in my head in real time.  There’s no built-in safety check or considered pause to my blog writing.  No pushback or guidance from a wife, friend, agent, or editor.  Here, I just carelessly blab out loud like some drunk at the end of the bar.

So here’s the thing.  I think there’s something not quite right with Jatos, his wife, Antal, and/or Larry and Aaron.  I think it would be smart for me to just carefully shut up for now.

I’m going to soften these posts for a bit, and try to stay out of trouble.

And this will help.  Sally’s off visiting our niece and her family in D.C. for a few days.  And remember Randy’s loft (post 68)? My late best friend’s place that has a secret room and was used in the film, “Big.” 

The place is now owned by an NYU professor, Abel Gutkind, who has also become a good friend.  He asked if I might babysit his tropical fish while he’s out of town.  Seriously. 

All those wonderful books bound-on-the-right-for-left-handed readers that lined the loft’s walls are gone.  But Abel has great gin and doesn’t mind if I have a smoke or two. 

So I’m going to re-camp to there for the next week while Sally’s out of town.  I’ll feed some expensive fish and keep their water clean, and I hope, write a few calming posts as I try to pull away from the Jatos-wife-Antal-Chris-and-Aaron thing.

Tomorrow: the writing of Tess’s Tree

114. Book dedications

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I got to thinking about book dedications. Maybe if I looked at the dedications in Allan Jatos’ books (I’ve got a bookshelf full of them), I’d gain some insight to the reclusive guy.  After all, you’d learn a bit about me by looking at some of my book dedications.

For example.

The Pessimist’s Journal

My first book.  Good god, it might be my only one, my only chance for a dedication.

It had to be Sally.

(My co-author, Dick McDonough, was a proud Francophile.)

The Really, Really Classy Donald Trump Quiz Book

Just covering my ass.

What Was the Bombing of Hiroshima?

Bombing?  Hiroshima?  A dedication? 

So I just went with the entire family.

The illustrator smartly passed.

The Hot Dog Cookbook

I tried to make it “John.” But Heinz wouldn’t allow me.

So I went with my nieces and nephews. Because they love hot dogs, and I love them like crazy.

(And yes, there’s another “Jess Brallier” out there. He’s an anesthesiologist.  It gets confusing.  I’ve been asked to comment on brain surgery, and he was asked to write the intro to a tater tots cookbook.)

Presidential Wit and Wisdom

The first book Sally and I wrote together. 

So we dedicated it to each other.

Adorable, aren’t we?

Celebrate America

To my in-laws, Pat and Bob Chabert.  She loved this book, her favorite of all of the books Sally and I did together.

Who Was Albert Einstein?

My bestselling book and yet it wasn’t dedicated to anybody. 

Perhaps a lesson learned?

Lawyers & Other Reptiles

My one true bestseller (I came up with the idea, unlike Einstein which I was asked to write).  Dedicated to my children.  Perfect!

Coach

Dedicated to our first and most enduring “couple” friends.  Friends who are a couple are rare and special, and deserving.

The Pessimist’s Journal for the 1980’s

For my brothers.

(co-author Dick is still the proud Francophile.)

Medical Wit and Wisdom

At last!  A well-produced and non-embarrassing book (Running Press did a terrific job) deserving and worthy of my beloved parents. (With thanks to friends, Sally, and the agent who got me out of a royalties mess.)

Tess’s Tree

An obvious one—for the real Tess who inspired the story.

The Olphabet

My latest.  And my favorite dedication.

To my daughter.

Now, back to Allan Jatos’ dedications.  His are all first names or initials.  Like Jack, Meg, Bela, Lazlo, M.C., A.D., and H.H.

Never any mention of his agent, editor, or wife.  Which is really unusual (go ahead, run over to your bookcases and check out the dedications and acknowledgements).

That is, until his 24th and 25th book (both published in 2020) and his 26th and 27th (both published in 2021).  And all four of those are dedicated to:

To Katie and Aaron

Holy shit!  Katie and Aaron.  The two also known as, “the hot jogger” and “the handsome guy that enjoys all kinds of sex.”

Jatos’ last four books.  Same dedication.  Those two.

What’s going on?  And why am I consumed by it?  Get a life, Jess!

Tomorrow:  I don’t know

113. Teena update

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I grabbed two coffees at the fancy Starbucks in the Meatpacking District and met Teena at one of the nearby umbrella tables.

I dove right into why I wanted to meet.

Teena confirmed that she ships Allan Jatos’s author copies to the same address in Tarrytown that is owned by the dead Lajos Antal and where I saw the hot couple.

Teena said, “Cool, weird, wow.”  Yep, Teena did a lot of weed when we first met in our 20s and she hasn’t, well, fully left all that behind.

She confirmed that’s she never seen Jatos in person.  Only the few photos of him which his editor, Larry, handed over to her for use on Jatos’ books.

I pulled out my phone and showed her the photos I’d found of Katie Jatos.  “Yep that’s Katie,” said Teena, “she’s been in the office and at a couple of events that —”

I interrupted, “She’s the hot jogger I told you about!”

“Mrs. Jatos? Katie? Allan’s wife? Is the hot jogger?” Teena was trying to process it all.

“Yes! She’s the hot jogger in Tarrytown!  Outside of the house to which you send Jatos’ books.  But the guy she’s clearing fucking around with at that house is NOT Mr. Jatos!”

Teena looked back to the photos on my phone. She swiped, then swiped again, “Oh, there’s Larry,” she pointed to a man next to Katie Jatos at a PEN event, ”her editor.” 

I recognized Larry. From industry events.

She swiped back to the photos of Katie Jatos. “That’s weird. Wow…and,” she paused, giving her next word thoughtful consideration, “funky.”  No wonder Teena did such a good job on my Quotes to Smoke  (yesterday’s post) project.

Teena looked up at me, “Tell me about the fancy lover boy.” 

I mentioned the green sport coat, the good looks, the sockless ankles, the fancy shoes—

“Hold on!” Teena grabbed my phone.  She quickly typed, swiped the screen a few times, and handed the phone back to me. 

Holy smokes. “That’s him!” I yelled, “That’s the guy!  Who is he?”

“Aaron Green, Larry Campbell’s husband.”

“Larry’s husband?!  As in Larry, Jatos’ editor?  The gay editor’s gay husband is his author’s wife’s hot lover?”  (My brain could hardly spit out such a weird sentence.) “What the hell?” And now I recognized him. He and Larry were at the table next to mine at the National Book Awards. If tuxedos came in bright green or pink I may have more quickly placed him.

Teena was as confused as me.  Her brain couldn’t catch up to the gay-editor’s-gay-husband-is-his-top-author’s-wife’s-hot-lover thing.  I got that.  I needed a drink or smoke to calm me.  Even this early in the morning.

Teena reached into her pocket and pulled out a joint.  “Wanna join me?”

I passed. Teena lit the joint and did her thing, while I asked a lot of questions.

Teena answered them:

“Larry and Aaron’s wedding was great. It was five years ago.  Gay weddings are the best.  We all went.  Music, food, drinks, table settings, all of it, just perfect.” 

“Larry and Aaron?  They’ll like twins.  They should host a lifestyle TV show.   Although Aaron’s the much better dresser with those bright sports coats and always, the bare ankles and two-thousand dollar shoes.” 

“I have no idea what Aaron does for a living.” 

“I don’t know!  People’s sex lives are, well, theirs.  Whatever.” 

“No, haven’t seen Larry since the pandemic started in 2019.” 

“Sure, Larry and I email and text.  Email mostly. And he’s been on the phone for a couple of meetings.” 

“No, Larry doesn’t do Zoom meetings. Several on our staff don’t.  That’s OK, no big deal.” 

“Yes, Allan’s manuscripts keep coming in through Larry.”

I headed back home.  My head was spinning. 

When overwhelmed, I try to make things simple. So when I got home, I wrote:

I know Aaron Green and Katie Jatos exist because I saw them.

I have not seen Larry Campbell or Allan Jatos.

Why am I doing this?  How did I get hung up on these people?  Oh, that’s right, I saw a grave with a book-ish tombstone near Dorothy Parker’s grave.  And off I went!  There may be something seriously wrong with me. 

Tomorrow:  I don’t know

112. Teena and Quotes to Smoke

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As noted, I’ve known Teena for years, and was lucky to have her work on the development of my favorite “book” concept.

Think about it.  Publishing is about putting content onto paper and distributing it to readers.  And quotations are, by definition, among the best of content.

So let’s put quotations onto rolling papers.

That’s it.

It’s that simple.

As Ray Bradbury said, “There is more than one way to burn a book.”

Seriously, rolling papers are simply little pages.  Just like pages in a book.  But instead of pages bound to a book spine, rolling papers are pages in a pack.

There’s a Shakespeare Box Set of miniature books out there that sells like crazy. 

Five packs of rolling papers fit into the box perfectly.

See?  Nothing to invent.  No new technology or die cuts. It’s all already there to be had.

I imagined a title: Quotes to Smoke.

Read an inspirational or funny quote on your rolling paper, then roll your joint, sit back, and enjoy.  Could there be a better reading experience?  It’s so simple; and simple is always good.  And it’s a winner for publishers.  Content-driven, easy to read and use, practical, fresh, unexpected, very gift-able, and nobody else is doing it.

The five packs of smokable quotations — they must be short — would be themed.  Something like: The Thinker, Resistance, Spirituality, Laughter, The Reader. 

The Thinker (sample quotes) 

The beginning is always today.

- Mary Shelley 

I hope, or I could not live.

- H. G. Wells

Resistance 

If not us, who? If not now, when?

- various 

Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.

- Susan B. Anthony

Spirituality 

Dear God, help me be the person my dog thinks I am.

- various 

Love in its essence is spiritual fire.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Laughter 

If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the Up button.

- Sam Levenson 

I used to jog but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass.

- David Lee Roth

The Reader 

Let the wild rumpus start!

- Maurice Sendak 

She was lost in her longing to understand.

- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Good stuff, right?

Rolling papers are cut from large sheets of paper, some printed with designs, but to date, none are printed with words.  For Quotes to Smoke, the quotes are arranged on similar large sheets so that wherever cuts are made (cuts are not exact with thin paper), a quote shows up. 

Teena figured all this out.  Ya gotta love her and think the world of her work.

Is there a market?  Hell, yes!  Legal marijuana sales in the U.S. are growing like crazy—$21 billion in 2021.  And then there’s all of Canada.  You’d think some publisher would want a chunk of that with the one book product conceived to exploit those distribution channels.

OK, sounds good.  So here we go.

I pitched Quotes to Smoke to several publishers.  They each called Barnes & Noble.  And Barnes & Noble said they will NOT stock rolling papers because “we’re a good citizen company and respectful of our neighbors.”   

And that was it.

Over.

Done.

No interest.

My Quotes to Smoke idea was dead on arrival.  If B&N won’t stock it, no publisher will get near it.

Meanwhile, “good citizen/neighbor” Barnes & Noble does stock and sell at a profit, Hitler’s Mein Kampf.  Don’t get me going!

Publishers continue to be led around on a Barnes & Noble leash (although, I suppose, it’s more the Amazon leash nowadays). 

It’s not a good thing for the industry or literature (or getting high). 

The endless bowing to Barnes & Noble is in great part, why publishes passed on the millions of dollars that would have come with owning online sales, e-books, and audio books.

Someday, somebody will do a Quotes to Smoke-ish product. 

That somebody will be outside of publishing (just like Amazon and Audible).  They’ll run with it, turn it into an entire line, establish trademark protection, take over shelves in both book and cannabis retailers, and make a fortune of sorts. 

Good content on paper, smartly packaged, unlike anything else out there, in a market growing like crazy.  It seemed so obvious.  But then one ornery buyer at Barnes & Noble….

Tomorrow:  Teena update

111. Hidden authors

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I started the day thinking about that sexy couple outside of the Tarrytown house. I just knew that I know them. If I could just remember…

So I hung out with Google first thing this morning.  I searched for images of Lajos Antal.  Nothing.

I searched for of the reclusive Allan Jatos.  And all that came up is the same photo that’s repeatedly used on the jackets of his books. It’s like searching Google images for JD Salinger and one photo keeps showing up:

But I kept going.  Deeper into the search results.

I got to several photos from book awards ceremonies.  But of course, Allan Jatos, like all reclusive authors – JD Salinger, Robert X. Cringley (Remember?  See this post.), K.C. Constantine, etc. – doesn’t show up at awards ceremonies.

But holy smokes, his wife, Katie Jatos, shows up!   And she’s the hot Tarrytown jogger!  Seriously!  I’m looking at her photos and their captions right now.  And I remember! I was at least two of those award ceremonies. Duh!

Yet photos of that fashionable stud with his hand on the ass of Mrs. Jatos (aka, the hot Tarrytown jogger) are not showing up. But I’ve seen him before. I just know it.

I called Teena at 14th Street Books. I told her I had to talk and think through something with her.  

She lives in the meatpacking district, just a 15-minute walk from me. 

First thing in the morning, I’ll pick up two coffees, and Teena and I will sit outside. It’s a good neighborhood for that.

Manhattan’s Meatpacking District

Tomorrow:  Teena (fingers crossed!)

109. Wild Bill and wild times!

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Last night, I twice woke up to pee but I still had no memory of where I had seen yesterday’s sexy Tarrytown couple.

So, as planned, I walked to 151 West 21st Street.

Not because of the fancy apartment building that’s now there.

But because of the old brownstone that was once there.

And in which Bill “Wild Man” Cannastra lived, on the top floor.

Wild Bill in his top floor apartment at 151 West 21st Street.

Bill was a member of the Beat Generation, a group of authors who explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-World War II era. Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road are classic beat literature. 

I’ve never been a Beat fan.  As you know by now, I’m more into the likes of E.B. White, Dorothy Parker, James Thurber, and their crowd. 

When “Wild Man” Bill wasn’t hanging out here with Joan Haverty, his 19-year-old girlfriend, he was eating glass at cocktail parties (seriously! — a much favored trick of his) and running around Greenwich Village naked with Kerouac (although Jack always kept on his boxers).    

But “Wild” would get the best of “Wild Man” Bill. 

On October 12, 1950, Bill was drunk one night like every other night, but this time he stuck his head out of a subway window near the Bleeker Street station and—

Boom!  Decapitated. Over.  Gone.

Within weeks Kerouac married Joan (Bill’s girlfriend) and found here at 151 West 21st Street, the sheets of tracing paper on which he wrote “On the Road.”

Bill’s gruesome death was used as fodder for writings by John Clellon Holmes (in “Go”), Kerouac (in “Visions of Cody”), and Ginsberg (in “Howl.”). 

Now what sort of prick uses some guy’s decapitation just as an excuse to write something?

Oh.

Never mind.

Tomorrow:  My first job in book publishing.

108. Tarrytown

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Like they do on all those police detective TV shows, I parked across, and a bit down the street, from Lajos Antal’s fancy house.  I was halfway through my thermos of coffee (See? I was really into this), when a couple walked out of the place.  Good timing!

She was dressed, tightly, showing off her body, and ready for a run. 

He was handsome, sort of the model look, with a bright green sport coat, polo shirt, and no socks to go with his fancy shoes...like he’d just won the Masters golf tournament but was rushed out of the locker room.

They kissed, they embraced, body tightly against body, he put his hand on her ass, and she teasingly reached for his crotch. 

Wow, Tarrytown!

Then they laughed, she jogged off, and he waited just a few minutes before being picked up by what was probably an Uber.  

I didn’t take a photo using one of those long camera attachments.  I wasn’t that into it. Besides, I didn’t have to. Both of them were familiar, maybe from photos I had seen, or maybe I had bumped into one or both of them in person, perhaps at a conference or reception. 

But this I was sure of:  the guy was NOT Allan Jatos.  I’ve looked at Jatos’ photo on scores of book jackets.  And I’m also guessing he’s NOT Lajos Antal, owner of the house he just walked out of, because that Lajos Antal guy is buried 40 feet from Dorothy Parker.

Where have I seen these two?  Where?  When?  Why?

I can barely wait until I have to get up in the middle of the night to pee.  I’ll remember then.

Tomorrow:  I’m walking over to 151 West 21st Street.  Something I want to check out.

107. Erle Stanley Gardner and more

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HOLD ON!  Going to pause for a few before getting to Erle Stanley Gardner. Here’s what happened since I last posted.

I woke at 1:43 a.m.  I remembered!  Tarrytown!  That where Tenna said she ships Allan Jatos his books.

Then I woke at 2:05 a.m.  There was a Graham family in my hometown of Ligonier (PA).  They owned the Buick dealership.  My dad bought all his cars there.  There was a beautiful Graham girl by the name of Anna.  That’s right, Anna Graham.  And that got me to thinking about anagrams along with my already thinking about Tarrytown and the buried loves-a-book guy, Lajos Antal.

So I opened up my computer and plugged “Lajos Antal” into an online anagram generator and up came “Allan Jatos“ – the name of my favorite author who lives in Tarrytown.   Holy hell!

Then I woke again at 3:54 a.m.  To pee.

I couldn’t get back to sleep. On one hand there’s Allan Jatos, my favorite author, who ends all his books with “vége” and apparently lives in Tarrytown (his books get shipped to there).

And on the other hand there’s Jatos’ anagram cousin, Lajos Antal, who apparently owns an expensive-looking house in Tarrytown. And yet he’s dead and buried under a book-ish headstone, with “vége” inscribed on it.

Coincidence? Come on!

Something’s up, but I can’t spot it.

By 6 a.m. I figure, the hell with it all, I’m driving up to that address in Tarrytown. To see what I might see.

Oh, and Erle Stanley Gardner?  You’re going to love this.

Early in his career, Gardner — author of scores of books, the creator of Perry Mason, and America’s bestselling author at the time of his death — was paid by the word to write for pulp magazines. 

The longer the story, the more he was paid. 

When Gardner’s editor asked him why his heroes were such lousy shots, always killing the villains with the very last bullet in the gun, Gardner said, “At three cents a word, every time I say bang in the story I get three cents.  If you think I’m going to finish the gun battle while my hero has got fifteen cents’ worth of unexploded ammunition in his gun, you’re nuts.”

Tomorrow:  Tarrytown

106. Lajos Antal

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I Googled “Lajos Antal.”  I didn’t come up with much.  Just an address in Tarrytown, NY.  The house at that address on Google’s “street view” looks pretty damn nice. 

Tarrytown? Didn’t somebody just mention Tarrytown to me?  I can’t remember who.  I hate when that happens.  And these days, it increasingly happens.

Anyway, I was once in Tarrytown for a conference when I worked at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ). 

That was back in the day when the brilliant Susan Kamil ran HBJ’s sub rights department.  Irene Skolnick (later a literary agent), Doug, Jane, and the love of my life, Sally, all worked for Susan.

Susan had Sally and me over to her place for drinks and dinner.  She called us “a cute couple” (despite my goofy-looking contribution).  I remember thinking how sexy Susan was.  Blue jeans, slim, she just had that look.  And there I am sitting with the love of my life.  Being a guy in his 20s can be a very confusing thing. 

Susan

Irene

Anyway, at this Tarrytown conference I’m at a dinner table with Irene, Doug, and somebody else (I forget who). We’re surrounded by, like, 25 other tables. There were well over a hundred people there.  And as dinner ends, Irene stands up and SCREAMS!!!!  Loudest scream ever.  The rest of the room goes absolutely silent. Everybody, including staff, turns to look at Irene. 

She’s standing there in her undies.  She forgot that she had loosened her skirt while eating.  Then when she stood up, her dress fell to the floor, she screamed, and now everybody was looking at her. If she hadn’t screamed, nobody, except maybe Doug and me, would have noticed, and she could have quietly and quickly pulled up her skit.  The moment was very Irene-ish.

That night, Stuart Harris, my boss, offered me a ride home from Tarrytown.  He had rented a luxury car service. 

Cool.  But I had to sit up front with the driver while two editors joined Harris in the backseat. 

There’s nothing like sitting in the front with the driver, well out of the conversation, that makes clear one’s spot on the organizational chart. 

It was sort of cool to be dropped off by a fancy car in front of the Subway Inn.

But here’s the thing.  The year 2019 sucked.  Both Susan (obit) and Irene (obit) died.  Fuck of a year.  I hated it.

Tomorrow:  You gotta love Erle Stanley Gardner

105. I visit Dorothy Parker

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Witty and creative and funny as Parker was, life wasn’t kind to her.  Even her afterlife.

Parker died in 1967 leaving her estate and all future royalties to Martin Luther King Jr, who she had never met.  Which was sorta weird. 

But even weirder, she left no instructions as what to do with her remains (ashes).

When King was assassinated the next year (1968), Parker’s estate then transferred to the NAACP.  Her estate included her ashes. Those were shoved into an attorney’s file cabinet. (I like to think Parker would find that funny.)

Finally, 20 years later, in 1988, the NAACP grabbed her remains from the file cabinet and laid them to rest outside its Baltimore headquarters. 

Jump ahead another 35 years or so to when the NAACP plans to leave Baltimore to move its headquarters to Washington, DC. Oops!—what about Parker’s remains buried at the Baltimore headquarters? Eventually, the NAACP allowed Parker’s relatives to move her ashes to New York.  And at last, in August 2021, Dorothy was buried in her family’s plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Parker’s relatives and others attended a memorial ceremony where those gathered read from Parker’s work.  And gin, her beverage of choice, was poured on the grave.

It was time for me to visit Dorothy.  I drove up to the Bronx and parked at Woodlawn. After a bit of a walk, I found her. 

The headstone is carved with a poem of Parker’s written in 1925 that reads:

“Leave for her a red young rose;

Go your way, and save your pity;

She is happy, for she knows

that her dust is very pretty.”

Somebody had recently left her a rose.  I choked up a bit.  Yet reading her gravestone I marveled at how Parker could make me laugh more than 50 years after leaving us.

I wandered a bit as I returned to my parked car.  And that’s when I spotted a headstone in the shape of a book. 

It read:

Lajos Antal

1959 – 2019

Vége

That’s all.  A name.  Years of birth and death.  And Allan Jatos’ signature sign-off, “Vége” (“the end”), on a tombstone shaped like a book. 

Weird!  Was this Lajos guy (I assumed Lajos was a male name, I’m not sure why) the biggest Allan Jatos fan ever?  Or maybe he’s just some Hungarian who loved to read and thought it witty to have “the end” (in his native language), on his gravestone?

Whatever. I’m tired.  Driving to the Bronx and back can be an exhausting pain.

Tomorrow:  What can I learn about this Lajos Antal guy?

PS: I have a friend who now lives in this home in West Hollywood, where Dorothy Parker once lived. Which is sort of fun because on every gift-giving occasion, I give my friend another Dorothy Parker book for her growing library of Parker titles. It seems so right.

104. The Algonquin Round Table

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It seems odd, nearly wrong, to be 104 posts into a blog about publishing and writing and yet not one mention of the Algonquin Hotel and the writers — aka “The Algonquin Round Table” — who regularly hung out there in the 1920s to drink, eat, drink, be witty, drink, conduct business, and drink some more. 

So today I walked over to the Algonquin Hotel at 59 West 44th Street.

The Round Table crew preceded me by generations.  But the thing is, back when I was supposed to be fawning over…

L to R: Charles MacArthur, Harpo Marx, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woolcott

…the likes of Tom Wolfe, Richard Brautigan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Hunter S. Thompson, and Charles Bukowski, the old Round Table sorts were instead my literary heroes. 

Among them Robert Benchley, George S Kaufman, Dorothy Parker, Harold Ross, Ring Lardner, and Edna Farber. 

The hotel treated the group to their own table and waiter;  plus free celery, olives, and popovers. 

The New Yorker magazine was conceived of around the table.  And even funded there. 

Yep, poker games would break out at the Round Table, and when Harold Ross won a big pot, he used it to fund the magazine.  And on February 21, 1925, when the first issue published, it included works by Dorothy Parker, Ralph Barton, Alexander Woollcott, Ring Lardner, and Robert Benchley.

Even today, hotel guests receive a free copy of the magazine.

For years I was a big fan of The New Yorker.  Although perhaps more so because of E.B. White’s long and impressive tenure there. (Recall that White shows up in this blog as my favorite writer in several postings, including the one about my life at The Subway Inn).

I once went to the Algonquin Hotel with friends Julie Stillman and Leigh Stocker.  We three were early into our publishing careers and it just seemed the cool thing to do. I had only ever drunk beer, which seemed like the wrong thing to order there. I had no idea what to order as the waiter approached, and was horribly embarrassed to admit it. 

Julie kindly suggested I order a “scotch and water.”  But when I said that to the waiter, he asked something about “straight up” and I panicked.  Julie took over, as if accompanying me on a day trip from the asylum.

In 1956, when Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe composed “My Fair Lady” at the Algonquin, music flowed for days out of Suite 908. They even worked all night, writing “I Could Have Danced All Night” (makes sense), which prompted the hotel to threaten removal of the room’s piano if they didn’t quiet down.

Maya Angelou always stayed there whenever she came to Manhattan.  She even wrote the screenplay adapted from her memoir, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” on Algonquin stationary.

The 181-room hotel opened in 1902.

And in 1946 Ben Bodne bought it, fulfilling a promise made to his wife when they honeymooned here that one day he would buy it for her.  Sort of like the Super Motel 8 ashtray I got Sally.

I gotta wrap this up with some Dorothy Parker quips.

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.” 

“You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.” 

“Tell him I was too fucking busy — or vice versa.” 

“I hate writing, I love having written.” 

“Brevity is the soul of lingerie.” 

“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.” 

“That would be a good thing for them to put on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.”

Tomorrow:  I visit Dorothy Parker

103. My new Robert Parker

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I know, I know, I go on, about the late great Robert Parker.

From his autographings (see post) to his house (see yet another post).

But the thing is, not only did I love his writing, but he was so damn prolific. 

Every year this impatient fan could look forward to at least two of his books—it was like Christmas twice a year!

There would be the annual Spenser book. But also, a Jesse Stone or Sunny Randall or even a Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch book.

Spenser Jesse Stone Sunny Randall Cole / Hitch

Now that Parker’s passed, I’ve moved on to Allan Jatos.  The guy is remarkable.  Two solid mysteries per year.  His protagonist is a guy named Pierce.  Pierce keeps showing up in different places, always solving the killing.  In one book he’s in a law firm, and nails the killer partner.  Next book Pierce is a chef, and nails the killer bartender.  Next book Pierce is a pilot and nails the killer flight attendant.  Great stuff.

Oh, and this is sort of cool, Jatos ends every book with the word, “vége.”  Which is Hungarian for “the end.” Which I only know because good old Little Brown sales rep Sandor Szatmari (recall our visit to Herman Wouk) liked to say “vége” at the end of a sales call or a long night in the hotel bar.

Jatos is published by 14th Street Books.  Which has offices on, well, 14th Street in Manhattan. Very literary house.  There’s not a real commercial flair to their work, but oh boy, they struck gold with the prolific, talented, and winning Allan Jatos

Teena Rucker, a terrific production manager I’ve know for years works at 14th Street Books.   I caught up with her today, over the phone.  We talked a lot about publishing in the pandemic. 

She tells me that nobody’s at the office.  People are working remotely, from a tiny one-room studio, from their parents’ home, from their daughter’s home, from their summer cabin in the woods, hell, even from a different country.  People are exhausted of Zoom calls, of pretending to be dressed and perky and hard at work as if everything is OK.  So her work is nearly exclusively done by email, messaging, and the rare phone call.

She laughed, “My co-workers could be dead for all I know.  And it’s just their kids, parents, cat, or kidnapper on the other end using the keyboard.”

With my fingers crossed, I asked Teena if Jatos had a book coming out. 

“Two,” she assured me.

“Great!  How’s he doin’,” I asked.

“Same as always. Everything goes through Larry [his editor].  And I mean everything—cover art, cover design, pricing, editing, royalties, everything! All these years, and nobody here has yet to meet or speak with Jatos.  I just ship him books to a Tarrytown address.  And our publisher shrugs her shoulders and smiles, ‘as long as the sales keep coming in, who cares what he looks or sounds or even smells like.’”

I got that, thinking back to the reclusive J.D. Salinger and my days at Little Brown in the early 1980s when we still put remarkable numbers in our backlist budget for Catcher in the Rye, 30 years after its publication. 

Just like I’m sure nobody at Random House in 1996 who got a bonus because of the unknown cared about the author who wrote the bestselling book, Primary Colors. 

It was a massive seller about the Bill Clinton presidential campaign, written by somebody unknown who went by the name, Anonymous.  (Who later turned out to be Joe Klein, a political pundit.)

“And,” Teener continued, “Get a load of this—Jatos now accounts for more than 25% of our company’s sales.”  Wow!

Tomorrow:  The Algonquin Round Table

102. So much for the new blog idea

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Yesterday, depressed by the current state of book publishing, I promised to start a blog about the hardwood floor business.

But damn it! There’s already a terrific hardwood flooring blog out there.

This Dave guy absolutely nails (get it?) the flooring business.

With great guidance like, “Keep your dog’s nails trimmed” and “Seasonal floor squeaking should subside when humidity levels return to a stable level between 40%- 60%.”

I can’t compete with that sort of stuff.

So it’s back to book publishing.

Or better yet, a bit of my own news.

This just showed up in Publishers Weekly, the journal of the book publishing industry. 

Even after my more than 40 books, this moment is a HUGE thrill. 

Poof that what was long stuck in a file on my computer, will actually show up to bookstores, classrooms, libraries, and family bookshelves. 

If you’re curious about how this book happened….

And I love how the announcement looks on Twitter.

It began while I was listening to NPR, close to Memorial Day, and there was much talk about parades, memorials, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  It struck me, “Do kids know what the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is?” Why would they?  Is it in the curriculum?  Do all kids get to travel to Washington, D.C. (like I did as a high school senior) and visit Arlington National Cemetery?  Is there a book out there for kids?

I looked for such a book. Nope, none. 

There should be.

Sure, there are websites for a curious kid to learn about the history and traditions of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. 

But the few times I visited the Tomb, and witnessed its changing of the guards, mine was a powerfully emotional reaction.  I wanted to poke around at that emotional response, and thought a story would best serve the purpose.

So I figured I’d write about a kid visiting the Tomb.  I started typing. 

This wouldn’t be easy and might quickly fail—as most manuscripts do.  After all, the story of the Tomb begins with bodies horrifically destroyed beyond identification.  Those are bodies of loved ones.  Somebody’s parent, or brother, or child, or best friend, or the love of a lifetime. How the hell do you write to kids about that?

Body bearers carry the unknown Soldier from the USS Olympia to the horse-drawn caisson which transported the body to the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 9, 1921.

My niece’s son, Jack, is a curious and thoughtful kid (I adore him).  His father has served in multiple war zones. So for the story’s protagonist, I imagined Jack. (My father who served in the Pacific in World War II was also named Jack.)  So I had a name, and an inspiration, for the kid.

At the same time as I was thinking about the possibility of this story, my beloved older brother, JK, who served during the Vietnam era, was dying.  He had been stationed at Ft. Myers, next to Arlington National Cemetery.  When I’d visit him, we’d also visit the cemetery with him. And so my emotions were into this.  This one was personal.  But would that matter a damn to my typing fingers or a potential reader?

I soon had a story I liked. With each read of the manuscript, the story continued to work.  I’d even tear up at my own words.  Perhaps that sounds weird, but to me it seemed a damn good sign. I thought my story of the Unknown Soldier should, and could be, a book.

Luckily, I knew Yolanda Scott, Editorial Director at Charlesbridge Publishing. 

I’ve long been a fan of Charlesbridge’s publishing.  Yolanda was going to be in New York City for a conference.  I emailed her a couple of things I was working on, and we scheduled a drink at Sally’s (and Randy’s) and my favorite bar, The Drunken Horse.  Recall this posting.

The Drunken Horse

Yolanda cut to the chase, “I want the Unknown Soldier.” 

Wonderful!  She imagined it being presented like Eve Bunting’s The Cart that Carried Martin (which I love, so better yet!).

We agreed to terms, finished our drinks, and she caught a train out of Penn Station back to Boston.

And although it took a while (publishing is like that), when Yolanda got to editing it, she nailed it.  Just what a guy like me needs and hopes for.

Yolanda and Charlesbridge’s art director came to me with three possible illustrators.  We went with Jamie Peterson and again I couldn’t be happier.  Jamie is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and on the Board of the United States Veterans’ Artists Alliance.  I was struck by how expressive Jamie’s young faces are.  My story of young Jack visiting the Tomb gets emotional, a bit overwhelming for Jack, there’s concern and questioning and a final realization.  All that sort of stuff which I feared my words would fail.  But Jamie will surely complete wherever I fall short (see images.)

Oh, and the last words I typed into the manuscript, was its dedication to my late brother, JK.

This one feels right.

Tomorrow:  My new Robert Parker

101. That damn Roscoe Franks

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OK, I must admit.  I’m having a difficult time not thinking about Roscoe and his stupid mysteries.

As I predicted, every publishing house had zilch interest in publishing the sick bastard.  And that’s the end of that.

Or, it would have been, in the good old days. 

With no publishing house to PAY to print the book, to PAY for cartons in which to pack those books, to PAY for trucks to ship those books, to PAY for warehouses to store them, to PAY sales reps to sell them, and on and on, the book would simply never get published.

But alas, there’s self-publishing nowadays.  And Roscoe is self-publishing his stupid Phil Duffy mystery series through Amazon’s self-publishing service, CreateSpace.

I made a martini (actually two).  I needed gin’s help to do what I was about to do.

Here goes.  Martini near to my right, laptop in my lap, I take a deep breath and look at Amazon’s listing for the first Phil Duffy mystery. 

It’s #1 in Amazon’s “mystery and thriller” category.

 It’s the second best-selling self-published book in the country.

And the reviews for it on Amazon are all five stars, readers love it.

God, I hate this industry.

Tomorrow:  I start a blog about the hardwood floor business

100. The best book publishing I ever did

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(It is somehow fitting that this posting is my 100th. Lots of love in this one.)

People not only ask if I’ll look at their writing, they also often ask if I can help get their book published. 

Me: “What’s it about?” 

“My life.  It’s what they call a ‘memoir.’” 

Me: “Why did you write it? And who did you imagine would read it?”

“I wrote it because I wasn’t always like I am now.  I was pretty, even sexy.  I danced, I hitchhiked to New York City. I got good grades in physics and chemistry. I was fun. I need my kids and grandkids to know that.”  (I absolutely get that.)

Me: “You don’t need Simon & Schuster to do that.”

I suggested she photocopy-and-bind (just like a book) copies of the manuscript and give those to her kids and grandkids.

See what just happened?  Perfect publishing!  Forget about visions of Random House, The New York Times Book Review, and lovely bookstores.  

Just 1) make a manuscript into a book (print, digital, or audio), and 2) get it to its readers.  Done!  No contract hassles, no credit holds, no warehousing, no under-cutting from Amazon, no negative reviews, and no returns. The author is happy, and we assume her readers are.  Woo-hoo!  Go have a drink like real publishers used to.

Speaking of which, I perfectly published a book.  Once.

It’s impossible for me to write well enough of my father.  Born in 1914, he slammed into the Great Depression, and worked his way through dental school.  He was a scrappy guy. He boxed for his college team back when colleges had boxing teams.  He skipped going to medical school (which is really what he wanted to do) because a $100 scholarship was available for dental school.  He worked as an oral surgeon at a Pittsburgh hospital (where he met my mother, a nurse).  He liked to work the city ambulances on Saturday nights because he enjoyed fixing the jaws of drunken brawlers.  He then fought in the South Pacific during World War II.  He was a tough guy.  After the war he set up a dental practice but because of an allergy, he did his dental work without Novocain.  Even his patients were tough.

Yet Dad was the sweetest guy.  Thoughtful, emotional, understanding, a good listener, and forever, madly in love with my mother.  He wrote poems to her on Mother’s Day, her birthday, and their anniversaries. 

His poems were short (just a few lines), simple, pulled from few words, and they rhymed.  “Years” and “tears,” and “boys” and “joys,” often showed up. For example:

Then Alzheimer’s arrived.  Dad became forgetful and confused. I wanted to publish a book of his poems, for him, before it was too late. Here was the chance for that odd son off in scary New York City doing weird publishing stuff to step up.  I found somebody who printed and bound books by hand. Then friend and colleague Jeff Kinney (yep, that Jeff Kinney...I’m a lucky guy) designed the book and prepared what files the printer needed. 

I presented Dad with the book the next time we visited Ligonier (my hometown).  I was too late.  He was confused.  He held it in his hands, and laughed nervously (which he increasingly did when confused), and said “Thanks, son,” when my Mom told him to do so. 

But that was OK. His poems were forever collected.  My brothers and their wives, their children and their spouses, got copies.  And in recent years, so too have of my Dad’s great-grandchildren.  I got emotional (cried like a baby) when at my son’s wedding, I gave a copy to my new daughter-in-law.

See that?  I made a book and got it to all its intended readers.  The best publishing I ever did. 

The 50 books I printed should last 200 years.  Long after I’m gone, somebody out there with a bit of my Dad’s blood in ‘em might realize that they’re around because of an exceedingly good man who loved exceedingly well, and wrote the best poems he could to his beloved wife.

PS: My son, Max, now has my Dad’s old typewriter. It sits on his desk.

“I like to look at it,” Max told me, “and think about how he typed those poems on it. His fingers on those keys. Makes me smile.”

Tomorrow:  I’m not sure