Archives for 2004

You see, there’s this little thing in publishing called a contract. When signed, it confers obligations on both parties. The most important obligations of the author are (a) timely delivery of the manuscript and (b) delivery of a satisfactory manuscript. For most publishers, “satisfactory” will mean publishable, at the very least, but probably a sight better. If either of these basic obligations isn’t met (and they often aren’t), a publisher may renege on a contract (but they seldom do).

It’s well known that deadline extensions are handed out by book publishers like peanuts by flight attendants. It’s relatively rare for a book to be cancelled for late delivery; if one is, there’s a good chance the publisher has some underlying motive. For instance, if you’re an author whose acquiring editor has left your publishing house, you’d best be damn sure to meet your deadline, and in style. The staunchest thing standing between a missed deadline and a cancellation is the house’s investment in the book, which most commonly means the personal investment of the editor, i.e., the person who took it upon herself to jump through x number of hoops in order to persuade skeptical bosses to part with their investors’ money in return for the mere promise of a book. In general, that person no more wants to see the book cancelled than the author does, and so most authors are on safe ground counting on extensions. As an editor, however, one might understandably hope to know earlier than a month before deadline–this is when Sullivan “realized” that she wouldn’t be able to complete more than half of her manuscript–that an extension is needed.

The other pertinent thing to say about deadlines is that precisely those functions of a publishing house that can help a book find its audience, and that Sullivan found wanting at St. Martin’s–marketing and publicity, cover art and book design–are sensitive to them. Many of these departments start their work on a book far ahead of publication and rely on firm production schedules and season lists. It’s no small deal when a book drops off a list and gets pushed back to the next season.

But, as I said, late delivery is both the most common and most forgivable of contractual breaches in the book publishing business. Delivery of a satisfactory manuscript can be another story. Again, one is usually on pretty safe ground here, since it can be difficult for a publisher to legally prove that a manuscript is so subjective a thing as “unsatisfactory.” A really good, pugnacious agent can pretty readily cow an editor into gritting his teeth and publishing the thing, unless it’s an all-out total disaster. But guess what? If you miss your deadline and deliver something unsatisfactory–let alone unpublishable, as Sullivan readily admits the 600-page rough draft she delivered two years after her original deadline was–the publisher can walk away scot-free. Think “unpublishable” is too strong a word for what Sullivan turned in? She doesn’t; she pulled it out of production (a really big deal, like pulling up the rail in front of a freight train gathering steam) in order to get it into the shape in which she should have delivered it in the first place.

At the publishing house that used to employ me, we once received a manuscript several months late, and we weren’t happy with it. It was by no means unpublishable–in fact, it was a political-personal autobiography that was soon published by another house in much the same form and that now, many years after the fact, is selling like hotcakes. But it was not what the proposal had led us to expect, not the book we wanted to publish, and the missed deadline gave us the out we needed without our having to address the thorny question of what’s “satisfactory.” So from a certain perspective you could argue that St. Martin’s bent over backward for Sullivan. She left several doors open for them to duck out of, but they paid her advance and published a book whose fortunes, it is compellingly argued here, were already hobbled by its untimeliness. It seems audacious of her to complain about the publisher’s lackluster efforts on behalf of a book she delivered two years late, 100% too long, and in a rough enough state that she didn’t want it out in the world with her name on it. She admits she was “naive,” but nowhere in the CJR piece does she seem at all abashed by how unseriously she appears to have taken her promises to St. Martin’s. Well, there’s naive, and then there’s unprofessional.

To begin with, I was supposed to go to Chicago last week to hang out with Our Girl and cover a couple of shows for The Wall Street Journal, but my editors decided at the next-to-last minute that I should hold off until later in the season. Since I’d already cleared my calendar to make room for the trip, I found myself with a totally blank week on my hands, something that hadn’t happened to me since, oh, the Battle of Hastings. I briefly considered staying in Manhattan and telling all my friends I was somewhere else, but it didn’t take long for me to write that idea off as harebrained. Aside from the obvious problems, I didn’t relish the thought of being in town for the Republican Convention and its attendant chaos.

The more I thought it over, the more I began to suspect that the universe wanted me to improvise a vacation–something I’d never done. Longtime readers of “About Last Night” will recall that I took a week off last August to visit Isle au Haut in Maine, scene of one of the prints in the Teachout Museum, and wrote an article for the Journal about what I saw there. But that was a work-related excursion, carefully planned for months in advance, and I am, as you all know, a degenerate workaholic whose hands start to tremble whenever he spends more than a couple of hours away from his desk. Could I possibly force myself to toss together a pack-and-go trip, unmotivated by anything other than the simple desire to get the hell out of town?

Duty whispered low, “Thou must,” so I revved up my iBook. Two hours later I’d booked a rental car and gotten in touch with bed-and-breakfasts in Uniontown, Pa., Toledo, Ohio, and Buffalo, New York (all of which turned out to be excellent, by the way). The deed was done. Nine blissful days ago, I drove across the George Washington Bridge, singing along with Fats Waller as I watched the New York skyline shrink in my rear-view mirror. I was–to my ongoing amazement–off and running.

What did I do? I visited two Frank Lloyd Wright houses, Kentuck Knob in Pennsylvania (just a few miles down the road from Fallingwater) and the Martin House in Buffalo. In between I stopped at the Toledo Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery. All these places are far from my beaten paths–the only one I’d previously visited was the Cleveland Museum, where I spent a hasty afternoon several years ago–and the idea of seeing them in one fell swoop struck me as wildly adventurous.

Did I have fun? More than you can imagine. I plan to write about my cultural adventures during the week to come, but the best part might just have been the journey itself. Though I drove a lot–1,538 miles, all told–I did so in a leisurely, unhurried manner, taking back roads and scenic bypasses whenever I felt like it. (Five minutes after I pulled off the interstate at Albany, I saw a hand-lettered sign by the side of the road that said BULL FOR SALE.) I ate tasty breakfasts, feasted my eyes on Kentuck Knob and the Martin House, and looked at dozens of great paintings, including Frieze of Dancers, my all-time favorite Degas. I got lost in Pennsylvania for about twenty minutes, and a gust of wind blew a dollar bill out of my hand at an Ohio toll booth. Otherwise, nothing whatsoever went wrong.

I had such a good time that I stayed on the road for an extra day and night. Instead of coming back to Manhattan on Thursday, I called the Hudson House Inn, my Cold Spring retreat, from the road, and spent that evening dining in style on their front porch and gazing at Storm King Mountain from my favorite waterfront park bench.

I returned home on Friday afternoon to find three hundred e-mails in my private mailbox. You know what? I still haven’t answered most of them–and I haven’t even peeked at the no doubt burgeoning contents of my “About Last Night” e-mailbox. Instead, I’ve been taking it nice and slow, if not totally inert. I went to a press preview of Slava’s Snowshow on Friday night. On Saturday a friend called me up and suggested we spend the evening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which turned out to be all but empty, most art-loving New Yorkers still being out of town. We dined on wine and cheese, listened to four very good musicians play the Brahms G Minor Piano Quartet, strolled through the Childe Hassam retrospective, and congratulated ourselves on having had such a brilliant idea. (Actually, it was her idea, but I had the good sense to say yes.)

On Sunday I watched a Gary Cooper movie, Vera Cruz, on TV, then had dinner with another friend and went to see Garden State a second time. On Monday I ran a few low-grade errands, read a book, got a haircut, took a nap, ate sushi, and watched another Gary Cooper movie, Man of the West. Today I’m going to paint my first watercolor (about which more tomorrow, maybe) and dip a toe into my accumulated blogmail. I have no deadlines of any kind until next week. I’m so unwound that a puff of smoke could knock me over.

So, could I get used to this vacation stuff? I think I already have. Everybody says I look and sound much happier. And I know I’m going to do it again.

I also packed a four-CD set burned by a kind reader of “About Last Night” which contains the sixty-odd recordings I chose back in 1999 for a series of three Commentary essays collectively entitled “Masterpieces of Jazz: A Critical Guide.” I’m hoping that some obliging publisher will invite me to turn the results into a fancy book-and-CD package (hint, hint!), but in the meantime, they made for classy drive-time listening.

In addition, I gobbled up ten commercially released CDs in the course of my voyage. It occurred to me as I returned to New York that they added up to a nicely eclectic list whose contents might be of interest to at least some of you, so here they are:

– Karrin Allyson, Wild for You (recently praised in this space)

– Ani DiFranco, Dilate (“Superhero” is now my theme song)

– Emmylou Harris, Stumble Into Grace (I still have a crush on her after all these years)

– Allison Moorer, Miss Fortune and The Duel (Our Girl and I are of like minds when it comes to Miss Moorer)

– Uncle Tupelo, 89/93: An Anthology (good when it’s good, dull when it isn’t)

– Caetano Veloso, The Best of Caetano Veloso (this one didn’t ring the bell for me, much to my surprise)

– Rhonda Vincent, One Step Ahead (hot retro-style bluegrass from a superior singer-mandolinist)

– Fats Waller, Honeysuckle Rose: 51 Original Mono Recordings 1927-1943 (I don’t think the world is quite ready to hear me yowling along with Fats on “I Wish I Were Twins”)

– Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (need I say more?)

As I write these words, each of the five current picks is “signed” at the end with my initials, but that will change as soon as Our Girl gets the hang of the coding and posts her first Top Five item, which will be signed “OGIC.”

By the way, OGIC, thanks for minding the store while I was away. You rock, as always.

Simon Callow, Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu