by Daniel Keyes
One last thought went through my mind before everything went black. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't think of my wife, of my children, of the end of my world.
I said it aloud: "Thank God I finished the novel!"
I came to in a nearby luncheonette. I had merely feinted, and some Good Samaritan had carried me in. But, remembering what I believed to be my last words, I understood clearly what was the most important thing in my life. Not being published; not feme, or fortune or family, but finishing the book I had started.
Even if no one else ever read it, I had done it.
And I knew then, no matter what else happened to me, I would write books, and rewrite them for as long as I lived. I don't remember what I taught that day in class, but I do know I was at peace. As I had believed I was near death, I had met myself and discovered I could now call myself a novelist.
A month later I got a message:
Dan Wickenden of Harcourt called today to say they are going to make an offer for Flowers fir Algernon.
I didn't believe it. But then I received his note. "I can now officially bid you welcome to Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., and say how pleased I am to be the editor of such an original, fascinating, and affecting first novel."
What most struggling writers go through. From despair to exultation, from the depths to the heights, from tears to laughter—turned me around so quickly I became dizzy, and fearful that acceptance was a dream that would fade with morning light.
But it wasn't a dream.
The contract called for September 1, 1965, as the delivery date for my final revisions of the manuscript.
Revisions?
Of course. I didn't mind revising, as long as...
Wickenden asked for some cutting. He wrote: "The early, pre-operation Progress Reports, and those immediately following the operation, are something of an obstacle partly because of the spelling and grammar, partly because ... when the results of the operation begin to show clearly, they are essentially expository ... If the 38 pages could be reduced to, say, 28 pages, it might be all to the good."
Cut ten pages? No problem there.
He suggested one other change: "How would you feel about placing Charlie's excursion to Warren earlier in the book, sending him out there before he knows for sure that is where he'll wind up? I think the Warren episode would fit in quite easily following page 236, which comes after Charlie's question about being able to inspect the place."
When I glanced through the manuscript, I was stunned.
The place to which Dan Wickenden suggested I move the episode was where I had originally written it. I'd shifted it to a later point for some reason I now forget. But I was amazed at this editor's perception. I attributed his sensitivity to the fact that he too had been a novelist.
"Bear in mind," he added, "that all my suggestions are only suggestions, and if any or all of them strike you as being wrong-headed, so be it. It is your book, and we don't want you to do anything that goes against the grain."
Algernon and Charlie and I had finally found a home.
Part Five
Post-Publication Blues
19. "Don't Hide Your Light Under a Bushel"
I THOUGHT I WAS HOME FREE. I believed that acceptance of a book manuscript by a publisher was the reward at the end of the maze, and the writer could bask in glory. I was wrong again. A writer faces many false turns and dead ends. Moments of exultation shatter into months of despair.
In my files, I have an acknowledgment of my returning the $650 and cancellation of the contract with the first publisher. But I also learned that the Harcourt advance wouldn't be mine until the manuscript had been editorially accepted, as well as legally accepted. That meant it had to be cleared by attorneys who examined it for libel, copyright infringement, and other small print legal problems. If they considered the book unpublishable, I would have to return their advance as well.
There was much more work to do. The publicity department needed an autobiographical sketch, and names of well-known authors who knew me well enough to read an advance copy and say things that might be used in a blurb as a quote to praise the novel. The very thought embarrassed me, and still does.
I was also asked for names of "opinion makers" or celebrities I knew, who might spread the all-important word of mouth or, as one reviewer later quipped about Algernon, "...he got good word-of-mouse."
The only one I knew was a colleague in the Journalism Department at Wayne State University who reviewed books for the Detroit News. We talked, and he assured me that if my editor sent him an advance copy, he would review my novel.
Well, it was a start.
What happened next? I got galley proofs—my last chance to make changes before page proofs. Too many changes and I'd have to pay for them. But I wanted my work to go out into the world with as few mistakes as possible.
At this point, I learned that bound proofs, with the notation "Uncorrected Galleys," had been sent to the powerful prepublication reviewers, Virginia Kirkus Bulletin, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, who needed them about three months before publication day. These reviews would influence libraries, independent bookstores, and major book chains. They might also affect newspaper and magazine reviewers whose columns were usually held until after the official publication date when books would be in the stores. So prepublication reviews were the first ones anyone saw and often set the tone for those that followed.
The first hint that something was wrong came about two months before publication day. My acquaintance from the Department of Journalism stopped me in the corridor. "Dan, your publisher sent me bound galleys of Flowers for Algernon. I haven't read it yet, but I've decided it's not right for me—as a colleague of yours—to review it. I've passed it along to my friend Phil Thomas on the Associated Press staff. He's a short story writer, and he's agreed to read it."
I thanked him but went back to my office with a sinking feeling that something was wrong. What could have turned him around? I went to the periodicals section of the library and asked for the most recent Virginia Kirkus Bulletin. She handed me the issue dated January 1, 1966. And there it was.
FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON
For lovers of Science Fiction, this story, in its original form was always a special kind of tour de force, a classic to be given to people you were trying to convert to the genre. Now, and regretfully, unfortunately, it has been turned into a full novel which in turn is being made into a motion picture. The idea is still unique ... But now, oh what Freudian psychoses riddle the pages ... What shapely Hollywooden scenes come to view. What bastardization of what was once so beautifully put...
I dashed into the men's room and threw up. And then I wandered through that day with the deepest depression I had ever known. I understood now why my colleague didn't want to review it. He had obviously checked out Kirkus. And the Kirkus reviewer—the very first reviewer—had fulfilled my earliest fears. How dare I tamper with a classic story? Six years of work from novelette to novel had resulted in the epithet—bastardization!
I remember every moment of that despair, not only with my brain but in my gut. It still hurts. But, enough. Let it go.
I had to wait three weeks for the second prepublication review. Publishers Weekly said, "FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON is a strikingly original first novel..."
Praise also in the Library Journal: "This is an absorbing first novel, immensely original, which is going to be read for a long time to come ... Purchase in duplicate is recommended."
The New York Times published a full-length review in the midweek "Books of the Times" by Eliot Fremont-Smith, a respected literary reviewer. Here's the beginning and the end of his review:
THE MESSAGE AND THE MAZE
Algernon is a mouse and the flowers are for his grave, which explains the innervating title of this novel but does not convey Daniel Keyes's love of problems...[It] is a technician's maze, a collection of nasty little challenges for a writer of fiction. That it works at all as a novel is proof of Mr. Keye
s's deftness. And it is really quite a performance ... a tale that is convincing, suspenseful and touching—all in a modest degree, but it is enough ... The skill shown here is awesome ... Mr. Keyes runs his maze at least as well as Algernon and Charlie run theirs, which is exciting in itself ... And affecting too ... how otherwise explain the tears that come to one's eyes at the novel's end?
I was dizzy. I read it again and again. Tears came to my eyes. I choke up even now, thinking about it.
Thank you, Mr. Eliot Fremont-Smith, wherever you are.
The novel has since had hundreds of reviews, all positive. Only that first—the Virginia Kirkus Bulletin—was negative. "Why does it still hurt? I want to forget that first pain of novel-birth. But it is not a bastardization!
Well, maybe my reliving it now will get it out of my system or, at least, numb the pain.
Of course, I should have known better than to care. I know better now, but knowing is different from feeling. From time to time, I share with my students Turgenev's thoughts on "Public Approval and Reward."
Poet, set no store by popular applause. The moment of extravagant praise will pass, and you will hear about you the judgements of fools and the laughter of the cold multitude. But do you stand firm, calm and undaunted.
You are a king and, as such, just live in loneliness. Tread freely where the spirit of freedom leads, endlessly perfecting the fruit of your chosen thoughts, and seeking no rewards for noble deeds.
Your work is its own reward: you are the supreme judge of what you have accomplished. With greater severity than anybody else you can determine its value.
Are you content? If so, you can afford to ignore the condemnation of the crowd.
Easier said than done. I can almost sense the pain and disappointment behind those words. Turgenev, I suspect, must have gotten some lousy reviews.
On the same day as the New York Times review, Cliff Robertson called to tell me he'd just finished taping an interview for the Merv Griffin Show, displaying the novel and announcing his forthcoming movie version.
The Merv Griffin Show didn't air in Detroit until three weeks later. By coincidence, on the same day, the Detroit News published a favorable review by my colleague's friend, Phil Thomas, that began: "Charlie Gordon will break your heart."
What more could a writer ask for?
Only one thing.
Proud papa that I was, I went to the book section of Hudson's main department store in downtown Detroit, and tried to appear nonchalant as I sauntered through the book section looking for Flowers for Algernon.
Not a single copy.
When I introduced myself to the book buyer, he seemed surprised that the salesman had never mentioned it. He would order some copies, but now that the publicity had passed, he said, it wouldn't do much good.
When my friends and colleagues phoned to say they couldn't find copies of the book, I started calling stores. That sinking feeling again. Except for the Doubleday Bookshop in the Fisher Building, which had promptly sold out its stock of three copies, none of the other bookstores had ordered a single copy. Their managers all said they were annoyed that they hadn't been alerted to a "local" author.
I complained to my editor, "What good are reviews and publicity if there are no books in the stores?"
I'll never forget Dan Wickenden's response, and I pass it on to other writers as a cautionary tale.
"Dan, you don't mean to tell me that you didn't get in touch with the bookstores in Detroit and tell them about it."
"No," I said. "I'm kind of shy. And I didn't think it was my job."
"Dan, you shouldn't hide your light under a bushel"
For what it's worth, let me point out that ever since—wherever I travel—I talk to booksellers. If they have copies of my books, I ask if they would like me to sign them. They usually do, and then affix stickers to the cover, saying: AUTOGRAPHED. It helps sell books, and they rarely return them to the publisher. Experience toughens us.
20. When Are Writers Like Saints?
PUBLICATION OF THE NOVEL in the spring of 1966 encouraged me to search for a tenure-track teaching position. Again, I sent letters to universities across the country, but this time I got three requests for job interviews. One, from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, looked promising.
When I met Professor Edgar Whan, chairman of the English Department, he said, "I've read Flowers for Algernon. It's a fine novel. We're offering you a position of lecturer like the others in our Creative Writing Program. That enables the department to bring you in on the pay scale and academic level of professor instead of assistant professor. You'll get a formal letter in a few days, but I wanted to let you know right away."
"I appreciate that."
"You know," he said, "I've always believed that creative writing should be taught by working writers, professionals—not aesthetes or critics. But I've observed that most English Departments feel about writers the way the Church feels about saints."
"How's that?"
"They'd prefer not to have them around until after they're dead."
I accepted the job.
Aurea and I and our daughters, Hillary and Leslie, moved to Athens, Ohio, in the summer of 1966. I was to start teaching in the fall.
The day after I arrived, I got a phone call from Walter Tevis, author of The Hustler, welcoming me to Athens. He'd been hired for the writing program the previous year.
We met in a downtown restaurant, and shared thoughts about writing and the writer's life. Tevis said, though he'd been born in Kentucky he'd always dreamed of being a New York writer, of being in the center of the literary scene. He talked about his short stories, sold to the "slicks"—magazines printed on coated paper, and a cut above the rough "pulps" I had worked on. He talked about The Hustler, published by Harper's in 1959, and the successful movie with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason.
He sounded bitter, however, that Harper's had rejected his second novel, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and that he'd eventually had to sell it as a paperback original. He'd had a writer's block ever since, he said—hadn't written a thing—even though the novel later became a highly praised science fiction movie starring David Bowie.
He told me about the other writers in the program. They were away for the summer, but I'd meet them in a few weeks: the poet Hollis Summers, the novelist and short story writer Jack Matthews, and the nonfiction writer Norman Schmidt.
"Norm's no kid," he said. "He's published a couple of novels under the pseudonym James Norman. He was a reporter for American newspapers in Europe during the 1930s, and a newscaster for the Spanish republican government. He even knew Hemingway during the Spanish civil war."
I thanked Tevis for his warm welcome. I had never before been in a position to talk about the writing and publishing life with another mainstream novelist. I had often imagined myself in Paris in the 1920s among the expatriate authors in the cafés of Montmartre, sharing the literary life. This was the closest I would come—in Athens, Ohio, in 1966. But I knew I would enjoy living and teaching and writing close to other working writers.
That evening, as I played with my daughters in our new home, I found myself whistling "When the Saints Go Marching In."
21. Charly Goes Hollywood
FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON SOLD OUT its 5,000 copy first printing in a few days, and Harcourt rushed out another 1,000 copies, and then reprinted 1,000 at a time. Still, from 1966 until now, it has never gone out of print in hardcovers, and was reissued in the Harcourt Brace Modern Classics Series.
The Science Fiction Writers of America voted the novel a Nebula Award trophy, in a tie for "Best Novel 1966," and Bantam Books bought the reprint rights for mass-market paperback publication.
In the meantime, I applied to two writers' colonies for residence fellowships the following summer to work on my radiation novel and was accepted by both. I spent the first two months at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York, and the third month at "The MacDowell Colony" in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
On my second
or third morning at Yaddo, a young writer whose first novel was about to be published came down to breakfast looking distraught. I heard him mumbling into his coffee a couple of rimes, and only on the third mumble did I hear his words.
"Virginia Kirkus says I wrote 'a scabrous novel'..."
Remembering my own reaction to my Kirkus review, I said something like, "Don't pay any attention. Don't let it get to you."
But I don't think he heard me. He just kept mumbling over and over, "Kirkus says I wrote a scabrous novel.'"
That young writer was Robert Stone, whose first novel Hall of Mirrors was made into the movie WUSA starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Later, Stone won the National Book Award for his 1975 novel, Dog Soldiers, and was among the finalists in 1982 and 1992. In 1998 he was a finalist for Damascus Gate. Whenever I hear his work praised, I recall his plaintive cry about his first book, "Kirkus says I wrote 'a scabrous novel.'"
At Yaddo, I continued working on my second novel about the young couple contaminated by radiation. I finished it later that summer at the MacDowell Colony. Harcourt Brace accepted it and scheduled it for publication as The Touch the following year.
And what about Cliff Robertson's movie? Many celebrated writers have protested that their work has been destroyed on die screen. The common notion, as far as Hollywood is concerned, is that the book's author is the last one they want around after contracts are signed. The only way for the writer to avoid heartbreak, they say, is, "Take the money and run."
But I could never feel that way about Algernon and Charlie. I cared deeply about what might happen to them on the big screen, and I was worried about what Robertson might have done to the ending. After I had given him my negative opinion of the William Goldman screenplay, I heard nothing more from Robertson for another year.