The Long Way Home
An American Journey from Ellis Island to the Great War
David Laskin

Pub

Monday, March 15th, 2010

They say publishing a book is like giving birth to a baby but I’m not so sure. Having watched three babies come into the world and grow to radiant maturity (yes, dear daughters, this means YOU), I would say that literary and human birth are about as different as two milestone events can be. With a baby, “the man after his turbulent minute or two/Is expendable,” as the poet Robert Pinsky puts it. Turbulence over, it pretty much comes down to an increasingly agonized waiting game until – bam! – out comes this red-faced squalling demanding confusing bundle of needs. And that’s just the beginning. Expendable or not, I’ve loved nudging those bundles along the bumpy road from mewling and puking to reading Walter Benjamin, Checkov and Marguerite Duras, skiing circles around me, writing essays I envy for their elegance and depth.

But here is my book, with its own bright red new-born face, staring at me blankly, utterly and eternally silent. No needs at all. About the only pleasure I’m getting out of this baby right now is the memory of its turbulent generation – years not minutes. All those interviews, those neck-cramping days in archives, those stacks of library books and photocopies that kept mounting and merging around my office. The first hundred words (but who was counting?) tapped onto the screen. The cold sweat night after night at 3 AM as I woke wondering, Can I really pull this off? Where am I going to find Polish stories? What is phosgene gas anyway?

Lots of angst, many nails bitten – but I wouldn’t trade this protracted turbulence for the world. Indeed, for me, this IS the world, at least the corner of it I most want to live in. To wake up every day with a book to push a few inches forward is about as close as I’m going to come to a mission, a calling. And how utterly inspiring and consuming that calling became in the last months of writing, when all the characters were in place, the tone and voice long since habitual, the structure fixed and seemingly inevitable – and I threw myself into the mad gallop to bring it all to completion. That is the part of writing I always find most rewarding, most invigorating – though even then, at the height of authorial ecstasy, as one sweats it out at the computer day and night, skipping meals, neglecting dogs and garden and wife (sorry about the order there, sweetie), at the end of the tunnel one sees not the white light of bliss but the shadow of emptiness.

The book must be finished. The writing done. But all that looms as “The End” approaches is the “publication process” – the editing, the galleys, the review copies, the blogs. The daily (hourly?) temptation to check the Amazon rankings. The good part is long since over.

Tomorrow is my book’s birthday and there it sits all shiny and new with its pale bold letters popping out of its antique red background and its stirring ship-board photo and its naked secret spine under the cover, embossed in gold like a Medieval Bible. I still remember wrestling with that verb, that strained transition, the title of that chapter, but it’s only a memory. This baby has ceased to be mine.

The phone rings – one of my daughters. We talk about her paper on The Portrait of a Lady. The health of our dear old dogs. The wild weather in New York. My awakening garden. And while we chat my book stares at me from my desk, silent and remote.

All I can say in return is: I’m sorry our passionate engagement is over. I miss your youth, when you were unformed and full of possibility. I miss shaping and pouring myself into you. My real children bring me joy (okay, some angst too – and lots of bills) – but what do you bring? You never call, you never write – all you crave is the caress of others’ eyes. I can’t bear to look at you anymore. Go. Crawl into bed with someone else – preferably legions. Immolate your physical self on Kindle. Leap off the shelves of Barnes and Noble. Claw your way up the slippery sales ranking ladder at Amazon. Find another home – there’s no more room for you here. Don’t expect any more love from me. Get out. I’m already involved in another – even better than you.

Book, it may be your birthday, but you and I are history.

2 Comments  |  Permalink  |  Posted in Uncategorized

Comments

1. michael  |  March 15th, 2010

   joyeuse anniversaire!!

2. suzie  |  March 18th, 2010

   another fickle man!

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