THE HUNDRED-AND-SEVENTH PAGE

The little fucker had been fired! Worse, worse, worse, oh, worse: it was my fault.

I had read about the “auction of the century” but paid it little concern since my clients had not asked me to read the novel. The very eccentricity of the deal had commanded vast headlines in general media as well as publishing trade publications after the deal was done. If the author had not even committed his idea to a printed page, it would be an enormous success.

It was the apotheosis of the post-baby boom generation of book publishers. All of the players were under twenty-five: the author, an Ohio factory worker, who had begun writing the novel in his teens; the agent, who had never peddled a novel and had only dealt in the usually more profitable non-fiction, and her assistant, who begged her to read the enormous manuscript by the utterly unknown worker; the acquiring editor, who had galvanized her entire company virtually overnight.

The book was submitted on a Thursday, sold pre-emptively to the publisher on Friday, and acquired by a television cable film company in the largest movie deal ever--big screen or small--on Saturday. By Monday, most foreign rights had been sold. My Editor had been missing in the action.