The following passage is adapted from the novel Sophie’s Choice by William Styron (© 1979 William Styron).
- In those days, cheap apartments
- were almost impossible to find
- in Manhattan, so I had to move
- to Brooklyn. This was in 1947,
- and one of the pleasant features
- of that summer which I so
- vividly remember was the
- weather, which was sunny and
- mild, flower-fragrant, almost as
- if the days had been arrested in
- a seemingly perpetual springtime.
- I was grateful for that if for
- nothing else, since my youth, I
- felt, was at its lowest ebb.
- At twenty-two, struggling to
- become some kind of writer, I
- found that the creative heat
- which at eighteen had nearly
- consumed me with its gorgeous,
- relentless flame had flickered
- out to a dim pilot light
- registering little more than a
- token glow in my breast, or
- wherever my hungriest
- aspirations once resided. It
- was not that I no longer wanted
- to write. I still yearned
- passionately to produce the
- novel which had been for so
- long captive in my brain. It was
- only that, having written down
- the first few fine paragraphs,
- I could not produce any others,
- or—to approximate Gertrude
- Stein’s remark about a lesser
- writer of the Lost Generation—I
- had the syrup but it wouldn’t
- pour. To make matters worse, I
- was out of a job and had very
- little money and was self-exiled
- to Flatbush.
- I was glad to be shut out of my
- job—the first and only salaried
- position, excluding the military,
- of my life—even though it
- seriously undermined my already
- modest solvency. Also, I now
- think it was constructive to learn
- so early in my life that I would
- never fit in as an office worker,
- anytime, anywhere. In fact,
- considering how I had so
- coveted the job in the first place,
- I was rather surprised at the
- relief, indeed the alacrity, with
- which I accepted my dismissal
- only five months later. I
- approached my job—at least at
- the very beginning—with a sense
- of lofty purpose; and besides,
- the work bore intimations of
- glamour; lunch at “21,” dinner
- with John O’Hara, poised and
- brilliant lady writers melting at
- my editorial acumen, and so on.
- It soon appeared that none of
- this was to come about. For
- one, thing, although the
- publishing house—which had
- prospered largely through
- textbooks and industrial
- manuals and dozens of technical
- journals in fields as varied and
- arcane as pig husbandry and
- extruded plastics—did publish
- novels and nonfiction as a
- sideline, thereby requiring the
- labor of junior aestheticians like
- myself, its list of authors would
- scarcely capture the attention of
- anyone seriously concerned
- with literature. So in my
- capacity as the lowest drudge
- in the office hierarchy I not
- only was denied the opportunity
- to read manuscripts even of
- passing merit, but was forced to
- plow my way daily through
- fiction and nonfiction of the
- humblest possible quality
- —coffee stained and thumb-
- smeared stacks of Hammerhill
- Bond whose used, ravaged
- appearance proclaimed at once
- their author’s (or agent’s)
- terrible desperation and
- McGraw-Hill’s function as
- publisher of last resort.
- But at my age, with a snootful
- of English Lit. that made me
- as savagely demanding as
- Matthew Arnold in my
- insistence that that the written
- word exemplify only the
- highest seriousness and truth,
- I treated these forlorn
- offspring of a thousand
- strangers’ lonely and fragile
- desire with the managerial,
- abstract loathing of an ape
- plucking vermin from his pelt.
- I was adamant, cutting,
- remorseless, insufferable. High
- in my glassed-in cubbyhole on
- the twentieth floor of the
- McGraw-Hill Building—an
- architecturally impressive but
- spiritually enervating green
- tower on West Forty-second
- Street—I leveled the scorn
- that could only be mustered
- by one who had just finished
- reading Seven Types of
- Ambiguity upon these sad
- outpourings piled high on my
- desk, all of them so freighted
- with hope and clubfooted
- syntax.
- I was required to write a
- reasonably full description of
- each submission, no matter
- how bad the book. At first it
- was a lark, and I honestly
- enjoyed the vengeance I was
- able to wreak upon these
- manuscripts. But after a time
- their unrelenting mediocrity
- palled, and I became weary
- of the sameness of the job,
- weary too of the smog-
- shrouded view of Manhattan,
- and of pecking out callous
- reader’s reports. Oh, clever,
- supercilious young man! How
- I gloated and chuckled as I
- eviscerated these helpless,
- underprivileged, subliterary
- lambkins.