THE THIRTY-SECOND PAGE

Then one happy day, I received a note from a small publisher in Vermont, where I had sent the manuscript for a very long summer vacation. Apparently, the work had received good marks during its holiday.

The country flavor of my endeavor apparently had struck a pleasing chord, and my novel had found a willing publisher. After ringing up my publisher, I added the cost of the phone call to the tally of expenses I had made in my submissions. Unless earnings far exceeded the advance, this little caper would cost me a great deal more than the publisher was paying. Book collecting is a cheaper hobby than book making.

After so many rejections I had few fantasies about bestsellerdom and paperbacks and movies. They are not the result of endless, labored submissions. I suspected these perks would not figure in this equation; they didn’t.

I did, however, expect more reviews than the ones received in Publishers Weekly, the Kirkus Service, and Library Journal. I was wrong. Those reviews written for book professionals seemed confused by my work, wondering why I had written it and why a publisher had taken it on. Years later, I read the book with the jaundiced eye of hindsight and asked myself the same questions.