A Story about Book Publishing

This ends with my death, but before I tell you about that I’ll start at the beginning.

After I published my sports memoir, Gloves Off: 40 Years of Unfiltered Sports Writing, I wrote a memoir about my life called Brooklyn Jew. It begins with my childhood in Brooklyn and, in a series of nonfiction short stories, goes through my life up to my wife’s death a few years ago. Brooklyn Jew is a distinct state of mind, a way of interacting with the world I grew up in, a state of mind I carry with me to this day even though I left Brooklyn at sixteen for college and came to California at twenty for graduate school. This memoir is the best thing I ever wrote and means everything to me.

But I didn’t know where to find a publisher. So, I called my friend Eric Kimmel, a famous children’s book writer, mostly Judaica. He wrote the incomparable Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins. Eric and I attended the same elementary school, junior high school, high school and we went to college together. He knows from Brooklyn Jew. He read my manuscript, loved it and sent it to a small Jewish press back East.

The publisher, a nice man, arranged a Zoom call with me. On the call he said he was excited about my memoir and, although it wasn’t exactly what he publishes, it was adjacent. I never had heard the word adjacent used that way before. Fine by me. I embraced adjacent. He said I concentrated more on my childhood than my adult years and asked me to add a few chapters of grown-up Lowell, and then we’d see where we stood.

I eagerly wrote the chapters and sent them to the publisher. He said he liked my additions, said I’m a good storyteller, and he would get back to me soon. Soon became four months, four months when I looked at my email every day with pounding heart expecting to see a letter pronouncing me a genius and setting out the terms of my contract.

No how no way.

Because I am a journalist, I am assertive – aggressive? – so I called the guy and asked if he’d given up on me.

“Far from it,” he said. That sounded nice. He promised he’d have the full board of his publishing house read the manuscript, and he’d get back to me in a week. Which he did.

This is what he said. “I love your book, but I can’t publish it, and the other readers feel the same way.”

At this point I fell off my chair and embraced the fetal position on the floor.

“I’m heartbroken,” he continued, “but the problem is your demographic.”

My demographic?

Then he said the killer. “This book is aimed at your generation and your generation is dying out. There aren’t enough readers left for me to make a profit.”

Well, that felt great. I’m 79 and me and my bunch are as good as dead.

I thanked him for his time, although he might have been telling me to drop dead. I took it like a good sport and went into only a minor depression.

I called back my friend Eric Kimmel and told him what happened and said I’d try some more Jewish presses.

“Oy vey, Lowell,” Eric said. “Dealing with Jewish presses is like going to Chelm.”

You may not know about Chelm. It’s a real town in Poland but in Jewish literature and folklore it’s a town of fools and likeable simpletons, a town where chaos prevails. Jewish writers make fun of Chelm.

Here’s an example of a Chelm story taken from an essay by Edward Portnoy.

“Which is more important, the sun or the moon?”a citizen of Chelm asked the rabbi.

“What a silly question!” snapped the cleric.“The moon, of course! It shines at night when we really need it. But who needs the sun to shine when it is already broad daylight?”

Undaunted, I entered Chelm. I sent my manuscript to another Jewish press that seemed promising, especially because on its website it said it respects writers and gets back to them quickly. Quickly is good.

Quickly turned into a month and counting. So, I called the second publisher – as I mentioned, I’m an assertive journalist. I got the phone number off the website, a New Jersey number and dialed feeling brave. After two rings I heard that weird sound like a jet fighter flying through my brain, and an automated lady said, “The number you have reached is no longer in service.”

Which means to the first publisher I already was dead, and the second publisher was not only merely dead, it was really most sincerely dead.

Dead everywhere you look.

I’m thinking of sending my manuscript to a third Jewish publisher, this one in Brooklyn not far from where I grew up. It’s just this publisher’s website says the publishing house is located in a kosher supermarket.

In a supermarket is a new one on me. Is Random House in a supermarket? I’m used to publishers with their own offices, usually kind of swank with plush chairs and chrome-and-glass tables and a receptionist who looks down on me. I mean where in the supermarket is this publisher located? Near produce? No, that doesn’t sound right. Near, chicken soup? A possibility. Near salami and gefilte fish and brisket? Now you’re talking.

I’ll email them the manuscript tomorrow. If they reject it, maybe as consolation they can send me a kosher hotdog with Gulden’s spicy brown mustard and just the right amount of sauerkraut. Hold the onions.