Ithaca (9 page)

His colleagues know that he likes to start his meetings on time, and just before nine the room fills with a rush. First in is Yanara. He greets her, liking to speak her name out loud, the consonants and vowels rolling off the tongue like castanets. Of Cuban descent she is exquisite – a tall, willowy woman with an exuberant mane of auburn hair. A non-fiction editor of genius, Yanara does repeatedly what none but the best are capable of; she finds books or authors that anticipate a trend or shift in consumer taste, unlike the majority of non-fiction editors who follow trends and are then surprised to find their
books have failed. She is able to see a complete book in her mind’s eye soon after she has finished watching a television program, or reading a blog – all the author has to do is connect the dots – so she often gets to books or authors long before they are lassoed by agents. Plus, she does her homework, is good with facts and figures, and can position her books exceptionally well. Her latest success, a deeply insightful study on the significance of the little black dress, which she commissioned after attending a fashion show, swept every major non-fiction award last year, and sold 200,000 copies. A fanatical gamer, Yanara is leading Litmus’s digital publishing efforts, but that is only a small part of what she does at the moment, for she has charge of every major non-fiction area: history, politics, science, popular culture, lifestyle, and everything else in between. Zach does not have the luxury of having an editor for every area of specialization like the biggest houses do, so his six editors are expected to forage far and wide for their books. He is hoping she will come up with something good today.

Rachel, his main fiction editor, follows her colleague into the room. Petite and blonde, she couldn’t look more different from Yanara but she is just as brilliant. Their approach to publishing is a study in contrast. Where Yanara is passionate and instinctive Rachel is cool and granular. They have been at Litmus for around the same time, four years, and he was responsible for hiring one and promoting the other. They hate each other. Some of the dislike he attributes to their innate competitiveness, as they are both ambitious; but he is also aware that they compete for his attention and he is careful
to divide his praise and time evenly between them. This doesn’t always work and verbal scuffles between the two hold up the meetings from time to time.

Gareth, the sales director, ambles in. Gareth is his rival for Gabrijela’s job (she is still only fifty-four so no one expects her to quit anytime soon, but you never know) so they are wary around each other; this is not helped by the traditional standoff between editorial and sales. In a business as precarious and inexact as publishing, he will try to push for more optimistic sales numbers for any book they are trying to buy and Gareth will push back, attempt to be more conservative, because in the end it is Gareth who will be held responsible if sales do not measure up to projections. As publisher he has the right to veto Gareth’s sales numbers but he uses his power sparingly – too often, and he will run the risk of rendering Gareth ineffectual; too infrequently, and there will be missed opportunities.

Hard on Gareth’s heels, Maggie makes her entrance. The two bicker like twins. As marketing manager, Maggie likes to weigh in on stuff that Gareth guards ferociously, basic things like how much the company can expect to sell of a new title (despite the fact that no one really knows, including the retail chains who tend to pretty much drive the bus, although everyone likes to pretend that that is not the case, and that publishers have the same clout they had back in the day). Not that it matters, for when it comes to actually acquiring a book other things count, such as how desperately they want it, in which case, no matter what Maggie, Gareth, he or the editor truly believe, all the rules will be flouted, P&Ls fiddled with, market studies ignored, and large sums of money
and the Virgin Queen promised to the agent and the author in the hope that Litmus will land the book. If they succeed, there will be celebrations and drinks all around, gift baskets and expensive bottles of champagne will be sent to the author and agent thanking them for giving Litmus the opportunity to publish the best writer since Shakespeare or Marian Keyes or John Grisham or J.K. Rowling (or since the last budding Shakespeare/Keyes/Grisham/Rowling six months ago), depending on the sort of book it is, and all will be well. The trade journals will report the acquisition, the chains and perhaps even the supermarkets will buy a few hundred, maybe even a few thousand, and the backslapping will continue. If the book turns out to be a monumental failure, with returns shipped back by the lorry load, it doesn’t really matter because that will be two or three years hence. Nobody will remember the original cost of the acquisition, the unearned advance will be written off, accountants who table postmortem P&Ls will be called party-poopers, the editor will have either been fired or have moved on. All that is left to do is to send the author, who is rubbish, packing: they absolutely will not publish his third book, his agent will stop returning the author’s calls, and life will go on. This cycle can go on forever, or at least until the cumulative weight of all the errors made in years past threatens to spoil the party.

They are all here now: Patrick, tall, thin, with a heavily lined face and a neat goatee, who works with Yanara in the non-fiction area and is good with history; Jane, who assists Rachel with fiction, solid, dependable, as all backup fiction editors should be, their experience and years of careful
reading an invaluable asset; Prudence, his kids’ editor, the weakest link in the chain (he could do with a Barry Cunningham) – she will probably be the next casualty in the editorial department should it come to that; and, finally, rounding out the complement of editors, Peter, the paperback editor, who will add the job of managing editor to his responsibilities next week. Thankfully, Fiona has a doctor’s appointment and will not be in until later in the day. Alice, his creative director, rushes in, looking as though she has rolled out of bed. Zoe, Rachel’s assistant, who records the minutes, closes the door, and the meeting gets underway.

Zach makes a short speech outlining the challenges that lie ahead, and they’re off and running. Yanara, as usual, is the first to speak. She would like to commission a brilliant geek out of Santa Monica who is developing a theory on his blog that the iPhone app is changing the way the brain is wired. Hardly has she finished speaking than Rachel says vehemently that the book won’t work, nobody has any real idea about how long the iPhone and its cousins will maintain their hold on the imagination of the world, and evolutionary theory posits that anything that permanently changes the way we are needs to have been around for a while. Zach knows that Rachel, who is something of a Luddite, has probably never downloaded an app, and he is about to head off Yanara’s furious response when Gareth, who has been pecking away at his laptop, announces that Apple has sold over 1.5 million units of the iPhone in the first six months of 2009. Maggie, who looks hungover, unaccountably begins to tell a long, rambling story about how her collie, with the
improbable name of Plasma, turned vegetarian a few weeks ago. He is mystified by her contribution just like everyone else at the meeting, and it temporarily suspends hostilities between Yanara and Rachel.

He has learned that there is an art to running meetings and if he does not intervene decisively at a particular juncture, the discussion can go on and on. Gabrijela is masterful at keeping the tempo of meetings at a perfect pitch but he lets things slip from time to time. He interrupts Maggie’s story about Plasma’s dietary habits, and the argument over Yanara’s book picks up again. It carries on for nearly ten minutes, at the end of which he has no option but to kill the idea, which is beginning to look increasingly ragged. Yanara looks furious, Rachel looks triumphant, and he has to tell Maggie who looks ready to resume her story that they have had quite enough about Plasma. Half an hour later, it is clear that this meeting is not going to produce any stunning surprises. He cuts short a tedious discussion between Gareth and Maggie on whether a new biography of Hitler stands a chance given the definitive tome by Kershaw, and signals to Prudence to talk to her book ideas.

Despite the gravity of the situation his mind has begun to wander, as often happens when meetings lack the vital spark that brings them alive. What would the collective noun for a gathering of publishers be, he wonders. If you could have a crash of rhinos or a leap of leopards or a murder of crows, why not a persistence of publishers or an optimism of publishers – or, if you were trying to be rude, a folly of publishers … He forces himself to concentrate, reminds
them once again about why they are meeting: “Please remember what I said in my e-mail. I would only like to hear about big books or books that have the potential to make a mark on the bestseller lists. Save the rest for later.” (“Later” means never in his book.)

By the time he winds up the meeting he realizes that there is nothing new he can take to his board meeting next week, except a recipe book of food inspired by angels that Prudence of all people proposes at the last minute; maybe they could tie that into their Seppi franchise. He asks his colleagues for their opinion, Yanara and Rachel start squabbling again, Maggie seems on the point of saying something and fortunately for everyone decides not to, and Gareth says he will come up with a potential sales number after talking to his contact at Waterstone’s.

He stays on in the boardroom after everyone has gone, looking at the sheet of paper in front of him that he has optimistically titled BIG BOOK IDEAS FOR FALL 2010.

All he has added is
Angels Cookbook?
It is not enough, and although he doesn’t know exactly how much revenue he will be expected to bring in next year, he is already beginning to concede defeat.

The next day begins badly. Ever since he has returned from Thimphu, everything about his empty flat has appeared to shout out Julia’s absence, mock him for losing her. He can’t recall it ever being this bad in all the time she has been
gone – it’s perhaps because this is the first time since her departure that he has gone anywhere for any length of time. When they lived together, one of the things he had looked forward to whenever he returned from a trip was the big goofy smile she would give him at the door, the long lingering kiss, and the other big and small rituals of return. During his days as a bachelor, his house was his refuge, no woman was allowed to spend the night; now it seems a strange and alien place without Julia, and this sensation was multiplied a hundredfold the day he returned from his vacation. That first day, he had wandered through the rooms noticing, as if for the first time, everything that underlined the fact that she no linger lived there, such as the absence of the murmur of the radio that she had on all the time. They had often scuffled about this, because he loved silence and would only listen to the radio or his iPod when he was exercising or when they were driving. On the rare occasions when he listened to music at home it was quite a production; he would don the Sennheiser HD 800 headphones that he had bought after much online research, get into a comfortable position on his leather sofa, turn on the music, and close his eyes. He would do all this very deliberately, paying no attention to Julia’s good-natured mocking. He had noted the missing sofa that left the seating arrangement in the living room incomplete; the two paintings that she had taken with her, marked by the deeper shade of paint on the walls and the nails that he hadn’t bothered to extract; the ornamental pot-holder in one corner of the living room (without a pot or indoor plant, the latter having expired less than a week after her departure);
and other less obvious details that would have never registered when she was around.

She had taken very little with her when she walked out – her clothes, her toiletries, her jewellery, some stuff from the kitchen, a piece or two of furniture and art. On good days he would take this as a positive sign, an indication that she intended to return; on bad days he would feel crushed, thinking she had left with almost nothing the better to be able to forget him. In the first hour or so after returning he had felt so desolate that it had taken a tremendous effort of will to keep from bolting out of the house and checking into a hotel or, even worse (because he had known it would upset her greatly), turning up at Julia’s doorstep. Things had got slightly better since then but not by much, and any gains that he made were wiped out on days when he was feeling low for other reasons.

This morning’s despondency was mainly on account of Fiona. He had spent the night tossing and turning, unable to dislodge from his mind her calm acceptance of the news that she was being laid off. The entire office seemed to think he was solely responsible for her departure, that he had somehow betrayed her and them. There was nothing he could do – he was her boss so of course he was responsible, and he could not whine to them about how difficult it was for him personally and how he and Gabrijela had tried everything possible to stave off the inevitable. In a situation like this people saw only what they wanted to see. They would fear him and mistrust him and any affection or loyalty they had for him would be on hold for a while or might never return.
As for Fi – he would probably never see her again, and this had made him very sad.