As Sarah reported, John Shannon, LA based author of the Jack Liffey series, has signed with Pegasus and is getting the paperback deal that has eluded him. John sent me a copy of The Concrete River last year and we’ve exchanged emails off and on. John is represented by Amy Rennert, an agent who helps debunk the notion that only NYC based agents can get things done.
Corte Madera, California: this sleepy suburb of San Francisco is bracing for the arrival of the Earl of Watership Down, according to reliable sources inside the Marin County Sheriff’s Department. BBC correspondent Ziggy Stardust reports from nearby Alcatraz: “a low fog has settled over fabled San Francisco Bay, a brisk wind, west southwest at 12 knots, with gusts to 21 knots is complicating preparations aboard the Alcatraz ferry. Golden Gate Transit officials report hiring a fellow named Bill as extra security in anticipation of the Earl’s whirlwind itinerary. I spoke with Bill moments ago while he donned his security windbreaker: “Other than seals and smokers, the waterfront is calm,” Bill reported. The City has banned smoking along its pristine waterfront while remaning stoic about the seals. “If a seal makes a break for Marina Green, my orders are clear,” Bill said. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
North of the Golden Gate, Book Passages employees are excited. “We’re giving Voltaire’s Miasma front table treatment,” said one, “I laughed, I cried, I stayed up past my bedtime. The author photo was especially hypnotic.”
F. Howard Thunder, Regional Coordinator for Homeland Security, denied reports that a Seal team had been deployed. “The Earl is on our radar,” he said. “Thanksgiving? There’s no holiday for me or my staff.”
US and British authorities are conferencing in Washington and London regarding the Earl’s impromptu book tour. Vice President Dick Cheney favors swift action. “Let’s deport him,” a Cheney aide remarked, “This is hurting sales for Scooter.” The State Department is urging caution: “Proper channels must be preserved with an eye toward equanimity, another eye toward the Special Relationship, a third eye, if such a thing exists, must be trained inward without resorting to precipitous and regrettable bursts of activity.”
For now, aides to Condi Rice report that “The Secretary of State is not reading Voltaire’s Miasma. She is, of course, keenly interested in the earl’s erratic progression across the western US.” Inside the Beltway, opinion is divided: “It’s a political football. We’re on the five yard line. It’s fourth and ten. The ball is in his court.” And, finally, “this is the seventh inning stretch.”
Yountville, California: Special to the Napa Valley Crier: After lunch at the French Laundry the Earl of Watership Down offered the stunning revelation that a ring of ’sadistic ne’erdowells’ have been penning fraudulent rejection letters to writers, with special attention to cardiovascular surgeons. The Earl, dapper in a creme de menthe trenchcoat, read aloud from a letter that he received, a letter forwarded by Special Messenger from the United Kingdom. The letter was delayed as the messenger rode his bicycle from Lower Manhattan to Yountville, a trek that resulted from garbled instructions at his office.
The Earl, brandishing the missive, read a passage: “Your prose, while serviceable, left me shuddering at times through florid streams of rhetoric I could not vouchsafe to ford…” Florid streams of prose is, of course, the Earl’s trademark, something his readers, many admittedly dependent of the earl for their livelihood, others selected at random, have come to cherish. A Mrs. Dewhurst of Panama City, Florida, was quoted as saying, ” I read Voltaire’s Miasma over a period of weeks interspersed with lesser works, and can say, without reservation, Florida hearts florid prose.”
“It was without reservation that I came to this fine eatery in the heart of Napa Valley’s famed wine country,” the earl said. “Clearly, this rejection letter is a fraud.”
The Earl was given a table near the fire door. “His fans might have created a scene,” explained Jacques Brel, Maitre D. “We thought it best he be primed for a fast getaway.”
The allegation of fraudulent rejection letters is not a new one, says Albert Camus, chief of white collar crime in nearby Oakville. “Take the earl’s advice. Always be certain that sufficient SASE is enclosed with a number ten envelope; use ordinary bond paper and avoid adverb use.”
Even these elaborate precautions may not be enough. “On high the crepitant,” the Earl’s memorable opening line puts some readers off, Camus warned. “I’m not sure it even makes sense,” he observed. “And we don’t meet Voltaire’s nanny until page nineteen. Why is she being burned at the stake? For writing a simple memoir?”
The Earl’s Viande aux herbes Luxembourgoise was memorable, according to publicist Lars Kierkegaard of Ballard Auto Body and Publicity. “This fraudulent letter came just as the haughty salade arrived with impertinent jicama and orange tomato rosettes. The earl was too distraught to eat.”
Sonoma, California: We’re gathered outside the public library on West Napa Street to witness the first attempt by Google engineers to digitize an entire library. A small crowd has gathered near the orange Google Tent in the parking lot. Excitement builds as Millicent Kroft, Chief Librarian, reassures the assembled crowd that, quote, “there is no hocus pocus involved here. Although when the Googlebot emerges from the tent, everyone please don their 3D glasses. And no talking!”
The 3D glasses lend a mauve undertone as the Googlebot is wheeled out of the tent. Professor Robert Redbank of Stanford University’s Internet Think Tank explains the procedure: “The Googlebot is armed with a laser. When positioned correctly, its directional beam will penetrate the outer walls of the edifice, causing no harm, it will then seek out the books and suck the content into its lead shielded cerebellum. The data will be uplinked to orbiting Google Sats and from there, to Mountain View where Google designers will capture the incoming data with Google Gloves. This is not experimental: it’s already been proven that Google Gloves can absorb the life’s work of Virginia Wolfe.”
Professor Redbank has lowered his 3D glasses into place: here’s the Googlebot! The bot is in position; the order to fire echoes across the parking lot. The laser is turning! The green light has missed the library! Something has gone wrong….no wait, here comes Officer Pete Perry. He looks angry. “Okay, which one of you stole all the ciabatta?”
My God, they’ve digitized the bakery!
Dateline: Redding or Red Bluff. On a windy Wednesday in this northern California community an authentic Earl was mobbed as he shopped at the factory outlet mall in the shadow of Mount Shasta. Wendy Rice-Davies, a sales supervisor at TJ Maxx, described the scene: “The store wasn’t that busy. I’d sent Rogers and Hart on their break. Then, he came in. They told me he was bad, but I thought he was sad. That’s why I fell for the Earl and his pack.”
Artie Shaw, a local shopper, saw things this way: “The joint was rockin, going round and round, yeah, reelin’ and a rockin’, what a crazy sound. They wouldn’t stop rocking till the Earl came down.”
Significant Police Presence: Chief Alonso of the Red Bluff Barracks commented, “Someone left a cake out in the rain…my men were investigating, visibilty was poor, and that’s when we heard that highway sound… Cadillac doing about ninety five…caught that Volvo at the top of the hill.”
Mall officials admit that the Musak was malfunctioning at the time. “Not Fade Away is not on our playlist,” admitted spokesperson Geo Thorogood. “Although it’s a good song. We had Theme from a Summer Place on a continuous loop for crowd control purposes.”
Near Riot Conditions: “The Earl bought several items at Mikasa…he may have been Christmas shopping. It was Blue Hawaii Day at the mall. I thought he was an Elvis impersonator after he said, ‘but I’ll have a blue, blue, blue Christmas.’
A spokesman for the Governor’s office in Sacramento declined comment, however, F. Howard Thunder of Homeland Security appeared to lip synch “My Boyfriend’s Back.” Mr. Thunder seemed to emphasize the phrase ‘you’re a big man now, but he’ll cut you down to size.’ He was backed up by a CHP chorale and members of Roseville SWAT.
Eddie of Eddie’s Book Nook commented, “We’ve had Bill Vollman, Tess Gerritsen, Lindsey Wagner, but never an Earl. We can’t keep Voltaire’s Miasma in stock.”
The lovely Prudentia Chalfont-Smythe, chair of the Torquay Garden & Book Society is concealing a grisly secret. Not only is she plotting to assert Depew’s title to the Earl’s Estate ( Depew is the bastard son of Montague Pendragon KG, OBE, SOB, GMBH. Depew, raised by she-wolves in the less tony section of the Hartz Mountains, is embittered by the grotesque irony of living on the very property ripped from his grasp by a cruel fate.) Chalfont-Smythe, herself the love child of a disenfranchised royal, is ruthless in her pursuit of power, poultry ( for agricultural purposes), penury, pneumatic equipment, and, of course, the great prize, the earl’s dramatic forty thousand acre estate Great Puffinghammer, his lesser holdings, his business interests, and his desperate desire for literary greatness.
The Earl, unaware of Chalfont-Smythe’s despicable and wholly unsolicited emnity, devotes his days to the management of Great Puffinghammer, the citizens of Wellington Leg and Henley Hornbrook, the villages wholly owned by the earl’s Isle of Mann holding company, Gimme Re. It was on the Isle of Mann that the earl lost the love of his life, Dame Julia, to a freak oil rig accident. Shattered, the earl turned to writing for solace. He was the winner of the Snooker Prize for Voltaire’s Miasma, described by the Wellington Leg Intelligencer as ’shattering, as though Zadie Smith entered the body of Herman Wouk, before leaping to Aquinas by way of Bellow, with undertones of Danielle Steele.’ Nigel Newton, the reviewer, is regarded as a Danielle Steele scholar.
Thus, in summary, we find the tumultuous blog of serial suspense has only scratched the surface of intrigue, jealousy, stolen love, love of stoellen, ardent heaving, dark conniving, envy, sloth, multiple queries, some without SASE, plots, counterplots, savage revenge, and pluck.
Dateline, Wellington Leg. Your Reporter, Nigel Newton. In an exclusive to the Druidical & Literary this reporter can confirm the rumour that Nicole Richie, author and bonne vivante, is shortlisted for the coveted Snooker Prize to be presented later this month at the recently refurbished Wellington Grand Hotel on the Vail of the White Horse Road. “Excitement is rampant,” noted Prudentia Chalfont-Smythe. “Without the Earl to muck things up, I sense a new freedom bursting forth from our collective bosom.” ( Ed. Note: we do aplogise for the use of the word ‘bosom’ although we do wonder privately what a ‘collective bosom’ might imply in the larger social context, ie, can there be such a thing? Is there, already, such a thing? If so, shall we encourage its growth with this reference? We wonder.)
Chalfont-Smythe went on to say, “A certain person, one with many and several outrages to his credit, is now responsible, in absentia, for unleashing upon the county a highly mobile and unruly colony of hogs…creating disturbances to the peace and harmony previously enjoyed in these precincts.”
This reporter followed a police caravan to the offices of Coroner AJC Howard who examined the damaged arc, or advance reading copy, of Miss Richie’s novel. “Bilateral and unilateral slashes have invested the pages,” he said. “I’m pleased to say the copy is readable.” Mr. Howard deplored the incident. “Not to cast aspersions but our collective bosoms are heaving with relief.” ( Ed. Note: Often in forensic science the nominal use of metaphorical hyperbole seems inevitable. It is a regrettable byproduct of the profession, and journalistic integrity requires this graphic reportage.) Nigel Newton Reporting.
Postscriptum: Bosom may be plural even as a singular. Collective bosom must be singular despite its pluralistic overtones. Nigel Newton, Staff Reporter, Often Sent on Pointless Errands by the Managing Editor.
The Dowager Princess Hearts Bill Parcells: Mein Got, what a comeback against the Eagles last night. From an instant of heart fluttering incompetence ( Drew, we barely knew ye) to the final flourish at 0500 GMT. Many of the permanent guests fled down the pathway to observe the grand opening of a Denny’s. The Romantic Road has a dearth of such establishments. The halftime intermezzo featured a Lionel Richie retrospective; unfortunately the hounds reacted badly and there was a terrible stir upon their encoutering a herd of razorback hogs foraging on the fens. We complained bitterly to the Wellington Leg Policing Bureau; a Constable Cosgrove arrived, and he read aloud from Bergdorf Blondes. As always, it settled the dogs. The hogs disappeared amongst the hedgerows. Early reports indicate that the arc of Nicole Richie’s stunning debut novel bore the scars consistent with those of ‘hog’s teeth.’ Also injured in the fray was Rush Limbaugh. I jest. It was my river rafting inflatable HMS Rush enduring a late hit from one of the razorbacks. After reviewing the film Constable Cosgrove declared a personal foul against the interlopers. In the hub-bub I missed the band’s updated version of All Night Long.
Well, I’ve been selected to judge the final shortlist in the Wellington Leg Book Regatta’s coveted Snooker Prize as sponsored byMr. AJC Howard, Coroner to the Most Elite, and Amateur Sleuth. His self-published thriller Body Parts is the early favorite, though Miss Richie must be considered a contender. Last year’s winner, The Earl ( Voltaire’s Miasma) is exploring the American wilderness and may not be available to present the bronzed Snooker with its faux velvet detachable base.
Apparently the HMS Rush is entirely deflated. Perhaps Drew Bledsoe would agree to join the judging panel. No one looks off a safety quite like Drew. Yours, et cetera, The Dowager Princess.
Wellington Leg: The Fourteenth Ultimo: Dear Mrs. Anderson-Cooper, QC, Queens Prosecutrix, The Tower, London EC 3, In response to yours of All Hallows Eve, I do extend my heartiest wishes of bona fortuna in your endeavor to become our Advocate at Large in the next election cycle. As to the matter at hand, the investigation into the death by misadventure of the Thoringian Dressmaker, I can assure you that many leads are being followed as we speak. If I may, I will enumerate them is descending order of importance; naturally, at your discretion, this document may be manipulated to be read in ascending order of importance by simply inverting the pages before you and beginning at the end.
Blogging seems to be at or near the dark heart of this lurid business, one so distasteful, I hesitate to recapitulate in gross detail. There is, I fear, a cabal at work here, a shadowy ‘online’ network of correspondents who maintain on line diaries much in the manner and style outlined recently in Forbes. My men are culling through ‘entries’ made by The Earl, The Dutchess, The Dowager Princess, Dogsbody Urquhart Depew, as well as the earl’s man, Haskell. One hesitates to assign blame without solid foundation, the bedrock of our judicial process, the very essence of civilised discourse, but very odd occurrences are hereby noted:
The sudden arrival of a great many hogs, whose licence to run over our crime scene has frustrated further evidentiary developments such as the location of the body of the deceased.
The earl’s abduction by aliens is viewed with a jaundiced eye by myself and my staff. His continued contact with Haskell as well as the Dutchess defies comprehension.
Queries letters in various stages of development reveal a curious predeliction for the dramatic, a quality shared by many here in Wellington Leg, a town that must be viewed as hostile to our efforts and sedulous application of proven police technique. Vandals have made off with our supply of yellow tape, and I take this opportunity to requisition tape sufficient to circumscribe several square miles.
With More than requisite obeisance,
DCI Borchardt
I’d quite forgotten the impending expiry of Live Hogs for November Contract from the trading pit at the Piltdown exchange. In my absence the Dutchess reports that Depew, not content to lean on his rake on the front lawn for hours at a time, has accepted delivery of nine hundred live hogs on my behalf. Never one to be laying blame at the doorstep of others, I’ve sent instructions that hogs be set free to ” roam my property, engage in complex social discourse ( among themselves as I see it) and pursue their hog destinies and/or hog activities and not be interfered with nor harassed.” Unfortunately the text of my missive was sent in error to Agent 007 as an ‘email query.’ One can only hope that Haskell, reputedly the sensible one, has already ‘reached out’ as Tony Prawns in so fond of saying. I hope this latest setback to my as yet unburgeoning literary career may be overcome by the sheer volume of queries, and that, perhaps, in the course of events, 007 might find her interest piqued by my noblesse oblige in this regard.
As we travel the scenic byways of rural Oregon, Lars informs that my Kiss Me, I’m Norwegian baseball cap is now among the missing. In its place he has plundered a green felt Tyrolian chapeau, one more stylish than the purloined one. As he explores his inner Viking, Lars is proving an invaluable guide in this adventure. We skirted the very large settlement of Portland, thrusting ever closer to the bejeweled Los Angeles, still south of our current position despite the inevitable plate activity beneath her surface. We plan to dine on corndogs…soon all memory of haute cuisine will be erased. YHS, The Earl.