Henshaw giggled. And then he bowed from the waist. “Like I reiterate, there could be nothing up there but bags of old bread. But if you’ll remember to make restitution for the long-distance chatter before you debouch, man, there’s like a telephone on the floor under yon sagging chair—”
And it was that simple. That simple. The draft was sketchy, and far from finished, but it was indisputably the same novel. Roger Vaulking, his wife and a housemaid were able to swear it had been in a closet in their home, along with other possessions of Lucien’s, for over two years. An immediate injunction was granted against sale of the Blalock edition, and Roger Vaulking told reporters he would eventually release the work through another firm, but not until its notoriety had substantially lessened. Review copies with Fern’s name on them were around, of course, and Dana O’Dea got hold of one and sent it to me from San Francisco about a month later.
She’d hung around for a day or two, but my ribs got worse before they got better, and that baseball nostalgia goes only so far. I was sorry, but even Medwick had to leave potential scores on base once in a while. I rewrapped the book and mailed it to Sergeant DiMaggio that November, when Constantine and Ivan Klobb were indicted on assorted counts of prostitution.
Not that there was much point in the gesture. The sergeant probably never read it either.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Markson is the author of ten other books, including Vanishing Point, This is Not a Novel, and Wittgenstein’s Mistress, heralded by David Foster Wallace as “pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country.” Markson’s work has also been praised by Kurt Vonnegut, Ann Beattie, William Kennedy, Gilbert Sorrentino, and many others. He lives in Greenwich Village.