So. A book of suspense stories. Filled with visions of murder, mayhem, deceit, fear, psychopathia, crime and rotten interpersonal relationships. Your basic light-time reading fare. Something to make you laugh at your own nasty life struggles. No matter how bad you’ve got it, believe me, you haven’t got it as tough as Beth O’Neill in “Whimper” or poor old Mr. Huggerson in “Status Quo at Troyden’s” or quick-tempered Hervey Ormond in “Ormond Always Pays His Bills.”
I’ve been talking a lot lately about the condition of fear by which many of us judge the value of our existences. In THE DEADLY STREETS (last month’s Pyramid paperback offering of the Ellison-of-the-Month Club) I did an introduction touching on the subject, and I’d like to share with you a letter I received yesterday that speaks to the same situation.
A word about my mail. There’s an ever-increasing amount of it these days, which is nice on the one hand because many people feel so comfortable in these books that they take the introductions and the comments as an invitation to chat; but it’s a drag on the other hand, because I’m averaging about 200 pieces a day, and even with two associates helping me out, just opening the mail has become a long, arduous chore each day. I tried sending out a long form letter for a while, but that was costing a fortune and it only encouraged the correspondents to write another letter. I read everything, but I’ve just simply decided to hell with it: I can’t reply to all that mail and still keep writing. And since it’s the stories and comments that make people want to write in the first place, that’s where my writing time should be spent, not in responding to questions about writing, my life, the correspondent’s life, how to write a teleplay, how to get an agent, where the Clarion Writers’ Workshop will be this year, why more of my books aren’t available in Kankakee or Billings, what my sexual proclivities might be, or why and how the letter-writer feels we are simpatico because the both of us hate a) Richard Nixon, b) Rod McKuen poetry, c) the military-industrial-CIA-FBI-IRS complex and / or d) movies starring Cybill Shepherd. I refuse to read stories submitted for my august opinion. For a lot of different reasons, but most prominently because I’m too deep into my own stuff to play teacher to amateurs. I used to send the following rejection note, but I don’t even do that any more:
A CHINESE REJECTION SLIP
Illustrious Brother of the Sun and Moon:
Behold thy servant prostrate before thy feet! I kowtow to thee and beg that of thy graciousness thou mayest grant that I may speak and live. Thine honored manuscript has deigned to cast the light of its august countenance upon me. With raptures I have perused it. By the bones of my ancestors, never have I encountered such wit, such pathos, such lofty thought! With fear and trembling I return the writing. Were I to publish the treasure thou hast sent me, the Emperor would order that it be made a standard of excellence and that none be published except such as equaled it. Knowing literature as I do, and that it would be impossible in ten thousand years to equal what thou hast done, I send thy writing back by guarded servants.
Ten thousand times I crave thy pardon. Behold! My head is at thy feet and I am but dust.
Thy servant’s servant,
So the point of this digression is to plead with you not to write to me unless you want to give me money. And since that eliminates 99% of you, all that remains is for me to express my gratitude for your wanting to write me, even if it was only to tell me what a bastard I am. But we’ll get along much better if we keep the communication a telepathic one. You just shoot the good vibes in my direction, I’ll pick up on them, it’ll spur me to more and better stories, and we’ll both come out happier and more productive. Please!
(God, I’m scatterbrained here. I keep going off into every little byway of thought that presents itself. Like one of my lectures. Very free-form. But let me wrench myself back to the topic of fear and lay that letter on you.)
I’m having it set by the typographer exactly as I received it. Hold it! Another digression, but to the point. I recently had a bum experience with a dude who sent me a letter in response to the dedication of one of my books. The book was dedicated to the memory of the Kent State students who were slaughtered, and one day a few months after the book first came out, in flew this letter, informing me those college students were Commies and they deserved to be shot. Well, last year I did another book; in the introduction to that one I reprinted the dedication from the first book and the guy’s letter. It wasn’t a nut-case letter, despite the content; it was well-written, grammatical, perfectly coherent; I said so in the introduction, but went on to comment how sad such brutal beliefs, in these perilous times, made me feel. Well, the tone of the letter was a mild one — the guy said he just wanted to straighten me out on how the world was really run — and it seemed to me to be one of those probably misguided but at least honest communiqués. Imagine my feelings of revulsion when, six months after publication of the book containing the letter, my publisher and my agent received a terse communication from this wonderful, patriotic American chap who “only wanted to straighten me out,” demanding “substantial remuneration” for the use of his letter. Apparently, he wasn’t quite as selfless and dedicated to his beliefs as the innocent letter seemed. He was clearly another one of those whiplash cases trying to make a few bucks from a nuisance suit. Well, at least, that’s how it looked to me; it also looked that way to my publisher, my agent, and my attorneys, who sent him a long, detailed legal brief explaining why he had no claim and could forget the whole attempt at the grab.
I mention this here, before running another unsolicited letter, just to let the author of the missive following know that he has no claim, either. Notably, because it’s an anonymous letter, and because I suppose I agree with it.
But, anyhow, on the subject of fear, here’s another face of the monster. I reproduce it in the form I received it, without grammatical corrections. It’s disturbing, to say the least.
Mr. Ellison,
I plead guilty. I’m the one …
… removing the drunk from the emergency room to late. The eighteen year old girl has died while the doctor was preoccupied with the drunk. I’m listening to the nurses deciding how to fake the report on the girl who should not have died. The explaining to the mother is mine.
… picking up drunks at midnight in frount of the bar full of onlookers shouting and screaming protest. I left a drunk here once before and he ended up a crippled vegestable when these kind folks robbed him. So I pick up the drunks and take them (not to jail?) home.
… finding the kid swearing to commit suicide and take him to the hospital. The one who talks to him when the psychiatrist tells him to go to hell. I’m the one finding him the next day, a block away, face up, dead.
… wondering what the hell is wrong when I pick up a kid speeding thru the hospital zone to late. Something went wrong. Did the pedestrian know that she was carried six blocks on the boy’s frount fender before she slid under the wheels? Why blame the kid? He didn’t buy the car or set up the law.