She did not allow me to walk her back to her office: ‘Waste of your time and mine. I have meetings, you have work to do.’
I demurred: ‘I thought we might go over my two lists for Chapter Seven.’
‘Oh no!’ she cried as she broke away. ‘You do that work in silence, with the best brainpower you have,’ but when she saw my disappointment she delayed her departure: ‘Dr. Streibert, I’m much heartened by your description of yourself. I think you have the capacity to be a first-rate critic, and I’ll help you.’ Then with surprising speed she was gone.
On Monday I received a confirming note: ‘I will be presenting my suggestion to the board on Wednesday and shall communicate soonest. Yvonne Marmelle.’
Wednesday afternoon about five-thirty, I received a phone call in which Ms. Marmelle could scarcely hide her delight: ‘They’ve given me the green light. But only if—and underscore that heavily, if—you and I can satisfy each other that it’s a workable idea, and if you can assure me that you’ll be able to go right to work, and most important of all, if you have something substantial to say about our contemporaries. So sharpen your pencils and put your thinking cap on.’
‘I have. When may I come to see you?’
‘Better yet—I’m coming to see you. Saturday. Lunch at the inn in Dresden.’
‘My goodness! I thought you never saw anyone on Saturday or Sunday.’
‘At my office never. At the Dresden China, a lovely country inn, yes.’
‘See you at noon, pencil sharpened.’
‘And mine.’
Much later I would learn that Ms. Marmelle followed the rigid convention that kept senior editors out of trouble: ‘Never, on pain of death, allow one of your older writers to know, when you visit him, that you’re also visiting a younger one of great promise.’
So she was coming to Dresden not primarily to see me but to perform a much more important editorial task: to work with Lukas Yoder on the redrafting of troublesome passages in the manuscript that would be of such crucial importance to each of them. Creamery he was calling it, a tale of how the Pennsylvania Dutch lusted over land and agricultural property, and they both knew that his future, and perhaps hers, too, hung on the proper presentation of this novel. They had shared four heart-stabbing disappointments with his first Grenzler novels, and despite his startling success with Hex, they could recall numerous instances in which a struggling novelist had finally broken through with a work that was a resounding success, only to fall back into obscurity with its successors. They did not want that to happen.
It was obvious to me that Kinetic had more at risk in Yoder’s Creamery than he did, for she realized that if he could follow through with another smashing success, and there was always that chance if factors remained favorable, the first four books in the Grenzler series would enjoy a rebirth, and since all costs on them had already been amortized, any unexpected sales would be clear profit, less minor charges for warehousing and binding sheets already in print or slipping the existing plates back on the press for another run. Kinetic had a huge financial interest in ensuring that Yoder’s next book was a success.
Furthermore, with any series that might prove as popular as Yoder’s Grenzler books, there would be a good chance that collectors would want to have a complete set, first editions especially, and she could see his first books skyrocketing in value, if first editions could be found. So it was no ordinary visit she was making to the Dresden China; two vital interests were at stake: a possible repeat by a best-selling author and a possible nominee to write a first-rate critical book that would have a chance of catching on for a respectable sale in universities. Rarely did she set forth on a weekend mission so fraught with possibilities.
So, unbeknownst to me, she had slipped into town Friday afternoon and had worked diligently with Yoder at his farm. Now, on Saturday afternoon, she was ready to deal with me, and when she entered the Dresden China, where she had stayed when nursing Hex to its glory, she gave me the impression that she had just driven in from New York. But to protect herself from some inadvertent revelation by a hotel clerk or some townsman who knew her, she immediately revealed: ‘Checked in last night. And how are you, Professor?’
‘Fine,’ I said, and we went right to work, spreading our papers over a table tucked into a corner surrounded by glass cases containing Meissen ware. She began with a warm assurance: ‘It’s done, Dr. Streibert. If we decide in the next two hours that you have an appropriate editor and I a capable author, we shall have a contract by the middle of next week.’ When she saw my eyes brighten, she corrected: ‘What we’ll have, of course, is a letter of intent from me. That Kinetic intends to issue a contract along the financial terms proposed. It usually takes some time to work out the details, but as for you and me that letter is a contract. Do you have an agent?’
‘No.’
‘No reason why you should. At this stage. Hopefully you’ll need one soon. But I assure you, we’ll give you the standard.’
‘Which is?’
‘I don’t really know in your case. I suppose ten percent of list. If the book sells for twelve dollars, you get a dollar twenty per copy.’
‘Will it sell for that?’
‘A book not yet written, length not assured, who can say? But don’t start dreaming about wealth untold. I suppose you know what the average author like you earns from his first three or four books? About sixteen hundred dollars a book, if he’s lucky. The important duty for us right now—This is my lunch, by the way.’
‘Not on my turf, it isn’t.’
‘Oh, all right. Well, what have you come up with?’
‘I find myself totally at ease with the chapters we more or less decided on.’
‘Nothing’s decided, Dr. Streibert, until we nail it down, with notes—today.’
‘I’m ready to do some nailing.’ I liked her forthright approach to matters relating to books. You asked her a question, she shot back an answer.
‘Good. I should think it would be advantageous to say at the start that you got your idea of the four acceptable, four nonacceptable from a distinguished critic. F. R. Leavis.’
‘Yes, but you understand, he gave only the four acceptables. It was my Professor Devlan who improved the lecture by adding the unacceptables.’
‘Is Devlan dead also?’
‘No, he’s alive.’
‘All right I think it most effective when a scholar admits right up front: “As the leading literary English literary critic F. R. Leavis said in his notorious Oxford lecture in nineteen something …” A statement like that informs the reader that you’re not some smartass trying to take all the credit for yourself. It gives your ideas a genealogy, a respectability.’
We marched thus through the first six chapters, laying the groundwork for the hard analysis that would come later, after the principles had been established. She wanted ample reference to all the good men and women who were writing about American fiction, and she did not seem to care whether I agreed with the experts or not but was concerned only that I be familiar with their criticisms. But she did counsel: ‘It never hurts a really bright young man to tackle the biggest panjandrums. Look how far Bill Buckley got by lambasting the stuffed shirts at Yale.’
When we reached Chapter Seven, I laid out my four goodies, as she called them, Melville, Crane, Wharton, Faulkner, as opposed to the baddies, Lewis, Buck, Hemingway, Steinbeck. She immediately jabbed her finger at Stephen Crane: ‘I don’t think he belongs.’
I tensed, and my face must have reddened. During my public lecture many had questioned the inclusion of a talent so apparently slight as Crane, and in subsequent weeks, when the list was commented upon widely, the harshest criticism fell on my suggestion that he was a major figure, until retaining him became the litmus test of my integrity. Quietly I said: ‘I’d feel I’d abandoned my principles if I eliminated Crane. He represents all that Devlan and I stand for.’
‘Devlan’s not involved in this.’
‘Oh, but h
e is!’ I cried, with a quickness that brought new blood to my face, and at which she must have said to herself: So that’s how the wind blows! Aloud, she said: ‘Let’s restrict this to American judgments,’ and I nodded, but I did not retreat: ‘I would feel deprived if I had to lose Crane.’
‘There is a better one.’
‘Who?’
‘Nathaniel Hawthorne. Infinitely richer. Has infinitely more to say to us moderns.’
‘I’m afraid I find Hawthorne rather dull,’ I said curtly, as if addressing a presumptuous student. The words fell with an angry thud, as if I had dismissed as unworthy the reasoned judgment of a practiced older woman, and I could see that she resented this, but I bumbled ahead. She contained her anger, saying brightly as if opening an entirely new subject after a pleasant break: ‘Well, any changes in the right-hand column? Or are we still disposing of our four Nobel winners?’
‘No changes.’
‘This could be a very powerful part of the book.’
‘I’d like to make it so.’
‘But I wonder if you really want to ridicule Hemingway? He’s a rather impressive figure.’
‘You’ve hit exactly the right word. A figure, not a writer.’
‘Now, just back off a bit, young man.’ She could sense that I resented this condescension, but I believe she used the phrase intentionally, to goad me, to test my mettle. So, to complete the testing, she added: ‘I’m much impressed by the testimony of a well-known critic who had completed a world tour in which he met a lot of young writers: “Wherever I went I talked with writers of other nations who assured me: ‘I don’t want to write like Hemingway,’ but they all did. Never did they not want to write like Camus or Faulkner, because these two didn’t matter. They wanted to avoid a test of arms with Hemingway, because he did matter.” I think that states my view.’
‘No, Hemingway was the great poseur, not the great writer. Feigning to be so modest and not wanting to be recognized in public, but wearing the unmistakable beard. Posing as the invulnerable macho but, when the going got rough, ending it in suicide. He deserves to stay where he is and young writers ought to hear what I have to say about him.’
I could see that she was of two minds. As one who loved literature, she wanted to protect Hemingway’s reputation, but as an editor who wanted her books to sell, she realized that if I blasted the icon, controversy must result, and our book would be helped. But something else, undefined, irritated her, and when I asked: ‘What is it, Ms. Marmelle?’ she smiled forgivingly as if I were her grandson: ‘Has it occurred to you, Professor Streibert, that not once have you asked my opinion on this matter?’
Chastened, I asked: ‘What is your opinion?’ and she said in measured phrases: ‘On the drive down I thought: In the negative part, drop Hemingway and substitute James Fenimore Cooper, who’s a real bore.’
‘Why didn’t you speak up?’
‘Because I suspected I might have to husband my resources to do some real battling on your contemporary lists.’
In this mood, each of us tense, we reached Chapter Eight, and from a carefully prepared slip of paper that contained many deletions and late corrections, I read the names of the four fellow writers I intended praising for their perceptiveness, their attention to major topics and their skill in execution. ‘J. D. Salinger, Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud.’
The names hung in the air for a long moment, then Yvonne said reflectively: ‘Three Jews and a black. No woman. You really do intend to kick the establishment right in the groin, don’t you?’
‘The mix hadn’t occurred to me.’
‘To me it’s the first thing that did.’
‘What change would you suggest?’
‘Answering without time to consider all angles, and maybe that’s the best way to answer, because it’s less inhibited, I’d say drop Malamud and replace him with Joyce Carol Oates.’
‘I’ll also respond on the spur of the moment. He’s one of the great professionals. She’s untested.’
‘I thought we were looking for that rare quality that reaches beyond mere professionalism. If that’s all you want, take Louis Auchincloss. He writes wonderful books.’
‘The rich man’s Edith Wharton,’ I said, to break the tension.
‘You’re satisfied with your four?’
‘I am.’
Trying to mask her obvious displeasure, she said almost sweetly: ‘Now let’s hear the shockers,’ and she leaned forward as I read out the names of those I proposed to condemn: ‘Herman Wouk, Gore Vidal, Leon Uris, Lukas Yoder.’
I had barely uttered the last name when she said firmly but quietly: ‘You can’t use Yoder.’
‘But he’s the most windy nothing of all. He’s an okay guy but as a writer he’s the one who really sets my teeth on edge. I know the Pennsylvania Dutch country, I’m part of it. And his books—’
‘But Hex is this decade’s sensation.’
‘And sensationally bad. I’d not want to bother with writing our book if I couldn’t take off on his empty pomposity.’
‘If there is one man in this world who is not pompous, it’s Lukas Yoder. Find another adjective,’ she said quite crisply, as if she did not propose to discuss it further.
‘I’ll withdraw “pompous.” What I mean is that his style, his entire management of narrative, is inflated, early nineteenth century.’
‘Some good books came out of that period.’
‘Not for today’s needs.’
Growing increasingly irritated with what she construed as my arrogance, she obviously felt that the moment had come to introduce me to the realities of publishing and my potential place in it: ‘Lukas Yoder is not just somebody. He’s not Leon Uris or Gore Vidal, or some able young man who writes good books. He’s my writer. I’m his editor. Kinetic is his publisher. He’s the author of a sensationally successful book after four misses. And next year the financial stability of our firm will depend on him. For me to allow you to denigrate him in a book I sponsored would be suicide. I’d get fired, and rightly so.’
‘Ms. Marmelle, I have no animosity toward Yoder. I like him. We did a television show together and it was a pleasant experience. But in this book we’re after the truth, and the truth is—’
‘Truth, bullshit!’ she cried. ‘Do I have to spell it out, word for word? There is not a chance in hell that I would be able to publish your book if it were not that Lukas Yoder has brought in so much money with what you call his worthless Hex that we can afford to mess around with rank amateurs like you. Because I championed Yoder during the bad years and nursed him along to the great success of which I knew he was capable, the firm gives me, as a reward, freedom to publish you and other smartass young men and women who among you will never publish a single book as good as his, nor as good as his future books are going to be.’
I was so staggered by her assault and the language in which it was delivered that I could not respond, so she rose and said with controlled fury: ‘The dinner is ended and so is the interview.’ And then she called loudly: ‘Waiter! Waiter! The check, please,’ and against my wishes she paid the bill. But she was a professional editor who did not want to throw away a good book if she could salvage it, so when I trailed her to her car, she did give me a last chance: ‘If you come to your senses, drop me a note saying so,’ and she spun her wheels in the gravel, angry at herself for having lost her temper but even angrier at her inability to maintain control of her conversation with me. She had allowed me to make the early decisions without insisting that I attend seriously to her reasoned judgments. In the end, losing all patience with me, she had blown up. It had been a most disappointing session, one that had to be disillusioning to each of us, and I was not pleased with my performance.
Back in my rooms at the college, I castigated myself for having behaved so inadequately. That was the only word I could use; I was angry not at arguing so forcefully—because I was right in what I defended—but at showing such ineptitude. I could not sleep, and as was
my custom at such times, I went out into the night and walked along the Wannsee, trying to decide what to do. I feared that I had killed any chance of publishing with Kinetic, and that was appalling, for I remembered Devlan’s constant hammering: ‘The overarching job of any writer is to get his manuscript finished and printed. That’s how reputations are made.’ I agreed, but I also had an unselfish reason for wanting to maintain contact with Kinetic. That house had a commendable reputation for publishing young writers, and if I established a connection with it I would be free to recommend those of my students I deemed eligible for professional attention. And secretly I had a more personal reason. Since I had this hankering to publish one of my own novels someday, I must not alienate Ms. Marmelle or cut my ties to Kinetic.
So, swallowing the brave words I had uttered about the integrity of the critic, I went to my typewriter toward dawn and wrote a brief note to Ms. Marmelle:
Sorry. In classics to be praised, Crane is out, Hawthorne in. In moderns praised, Malamud out, Oates in. In classics lambasted, Hemingway must stay in. In modern luminaries rejected, your Mr. Yoder safely out, Cheever in. Hope we can work together on what can be a fine book.
In other words, I surrendered almost every point to her sagacity except Hemingway, and by return mail I received a brief note that encouraged me enormously:
The Novel Page 25