{"id":19904,"date":"2014-05-21T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=19904"},"modified":"2014-05-21T08:57:07","modified_gmt":"2014-05-21T12:57:07","slug":"my-dad-was-my-literary-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/21\/my-dad-was-my-literary-secretary\/","title":{"rendered":"MY DAD WAS MY LITERARY SECRETARY"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

A New York<\/strong><\/span> editor wrote, \u201cYou should write a book.\u00a0 After reading your wonderful essay in the New York Times<\/em> this morning, I\u2019ve spent the last couple of hours reading everything you\u2019ve written that I could find online. You root your essays in your personal experience, but they have a universal appeal.”<\/p>\n

The editor concluded, “A humorous book about real estate would have tremendous commercial appeal.”<\/p>\n

Yes!\u00a0 But what if I worked a year on the book, got a paltry advance, and\u00a0only four people read the book?\u00a0 Besides, I\u2019ve already published a book. I published a novel in the 1970s about sex and college.\u00a0 It was small press (my press). I gave a copy to Allen Ginsberg. You can find it on Google.\u00a0 A<\/em> Cold Night in Ann Arbor.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m fried<\/strong><\/span> from writing books that go nowhere.\u00a0 I wrote unpublished books before that New York editor was born.\u00a0 I wrote Check My Balance <\/em>(about my mental health and the family business), and Riding on Mayfield<\/em> (about my youth) and Kicked in the Groin<\/em> (about my hernia operation).\u00a0 None of them got published, and I had great agents too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One time — when\u00a0 I was in Latin America — my dad acted as my literary secretary.\u00a0 He wrote to my literary agent, \u201cWe\u2019re very proud of\u00a0Bert and are very pleased you are representing him.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad my dad was \u201cvery proud\u201d of me.\u00a0 I still think about that.<\/p>\n

But I’m<\/strong><\/span> done.\u00a0 I just wrote the New York editor back: “I’m not going to write the real estate book.”\u00a0 If anybody wants to read about real estate, they can always click here<\/a> for 92 Klezmer Guy posts about real estate.
\n—<\/p>\n

The above is Philip Roth–style fiction.\u00a0 Yes, my dad<\/small><\/em> was<\/small> my “literary secretary,” and the bit about the unpublished novels\u00a0is based on fact, but I never received any email from a New York editor.\u00a0 If I had, I would have written back, “Yes, I’ll do it.\u00a0 Can I pay you?”<\/p>\n

File this under fake profiles.<\/small><\/em>
\n—<\/p>\n

SIDE B<\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG <\/big><\/big><\/strong><\/p>\n

Every year <\/strong><\/span>I pause to thank the major commenters to this blog. I could do Klezmer Guy without comments, but it wouldn\u2019t be as interesting.<\/p>\n

In no particular order, thanks to kibitzers Marc, Ken G, Jessica Schreiber, Gerald Ross<\/a>, Ted, Bill Jones, Mark Schilling<\/a>, Ellen, Seth . . .<\/p>\n

David Korn, Dave R, Irwin Weinberger<\/a>, Alice, Don Friedman, Lea Grossman Hapner, Ari Davidow<\/a>, Pierce G, Charlie B, Jeff Moss, Nancy Kane, Jack, Gerry Kanter, Michael Wex<\/a>, Faruk Ahmed and Steven Greenman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>See your <\/strong><\/span>name here next year by writing in.<\/p>\n

An extra gracias<\/em> to
\nKen G and Mark Schilling. They crank out comments in bulk — always insightful, inciting and\/or stupid.<\/p>\n

Lastly, thanks to bloggie illustrator Ralph Solonitz, the best and cleverest drawer around. Here’s an old post<\/a> about Ralph and his motorcycle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A New York editor wrote, \u201cYou should write a book.\u00a0 After reading your wonderful essay in the New York Times this morning, I\u2019ve spent the last couple of hours reading everything you\u2019ve written that I could find online. You root your essays in your personal experience, but they have a universal appeal.” The editor concluded, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fake-profiles","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19904"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20155,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19904\/revisions\/20155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}