Marty’s Memoir: A Bit of Ben Kunkel, a Bit of Lillian Hellman
Hi, Marty here. This is a paid advertisement for my memoir Marty Blames Mom. I want to stress that I’m not blaming my mom for the mess my life has become, but Mom as a kind of surrogate for personal responsibilty I find compelling. The fact that my mother helped plan the invasion of Cuba and may have been at the Bay of Pigs is not even relevant. I only know that we had baloney sandwiches over and over during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I doubt that had any lasting impact on my life, although, that might change once my regression therapy swings into high gear or if Oprah telephones.
Yes, I’m the guy who bought all those publishers and wrecked literary culture, blah, blah, blah. In order to prepare for the writing experience I read Ben Kunkel and Lillian Hellman. Not for nothing I’d like to point out that Ben Kunkel is a young guy who started N plus One, a literary magazine. That wasn’t in 1952, my friends, but last year. If literary culture is dead why he is writing about it?
Marty Blames Mom should sell a lot of copies, like 350,000. It turns out that if it’s considered non-fiction, I can write a proposal and receive an advance of $1,400,000. If it’s fiction I would get maybe $ 5,000 plus a lot of ballbreaking about style. I mean, people, come on. This is non-fiction. I’m going to fact check the part about mom and the Bay of Pigs, but the part about the baloney sandwiches was verified by my sister Terri. “We had baloney sandwiches,” Terri said. “There were Russian ICBMs in Cuba.”
So now I need an agent. Do agents discount for big advances? I’m new at this. I typed Book Proposal on a blank sheet of paper and wow, I felt it. I’m like a writer, dude. I tried different looks and settled on Book Proposal with the Italics. Where’s my check?