The Celebrity (24 page)

Ed was joyous at what he did hear. “Going out there doesn’t seem to have changed
you
much,” he said at the end. “Maybe it proves that in Hollywood you find what you’re really looking for.” Ed stirred his coffee thoughtfully. “Or in New York or Paris or Sodom and Gomorrah. I’m not sure about Moscow.”

Gregory smiled. “Well, when we finally got back home, the family gathered to honor the heroes. But, of course—”

“With Cindy and Thorn beating you in by a full week,” Ed said appreciatively, “you and Abby were a bit of an anticlimax?”

“Something like that.”

“Like the second Armistice Day.” Ed watched the waiter clearing their table for dessert. “One remarkable little thing, Gregory. Between Thorn and Hollywood, the book’s a whole industry already! If we never published it at all, it would still be a whole industry to a lot of people.”

Ed Barnard fell silent and, illogically, Gregory thought of Patrick King. Several days ago, that young man had prevailed upon Hat to lend him an advance copy. His literary craving had apparently been thoroughly slaked by its physical possession; he talked frequently about “having it before it’s out,” but thus far had read no more than the first two chapters. Apart from a rather tony air, Patrick King could have been worse, and at a time when Hat was feeling fairly tony herself it was probably inevitable that Mr. King would appeal to her. Twenty-seven and good-looking and “in the theater,” as he invariably described himself, Patrick King would represent masculine glamour to a lot of girls more experienced than Hat. But just the same—

“It would still be a whole industry,” Ed repeated, as if there had been no pause after his last sentence. “Only we
are
publishing day after tomorrow.” The ominous note returned. “And this time they’ll be laying for you.”

“Now, Ed,” Gregory expostulated, “I’ve been pretty grateful to critics in the past and so have you.”

“That’s when you were getting
criticism.
Nice, pure criticism in a literary sense, an appraisal of where a book succeeded and where it didn’t, some decent weighing and balancing of virtues and faults. You’ll get some of that now too.”

“And some of what else?”

Ed Barnard looked at him quizzically, “Did you know that you wrote
The Good World
just to hit a big book club?”

“But I—”

“—and that you studied the Hollywood formula, carpentered everything to fit it, and typed it all on the keys of a cash register?”

“But my God—”

“—and that it isn’t even a novel? It’s a tract.”

“It is, hey?” Suddenly Gregory relaxed.

“Most certainly. Novels must deal with the eternal unchanging stuff of the human heart, love, pain, greed, jealousy. Didn’t you know all that?”

“Sure I did. The fear of war and the awful longing for peace—they’re not in the human heart at all. Sure I know that. Try again.”

“You’re being irreverent,” Ed said. “I’m not sure I like that. Critics know what novels must deal with, don’t they? Don’t even ex-critics who write learned little prefaces once a year for the Christmas trade in Thoreau and Thackeray tell you what all novels must deal with?”

“Who’s irreverent now?”

Ed Barnard lighted a cigar and managed to look like an ascetic pugilist turned banker. Gregory waited. He began to hum a tune; after three or four bars the melodic line went off on its usual tangent and, sighing once, he let it go.

“They may let you off a little,” Ed went on, “in spite of B.S.B. and the movie sale, because
The Good World
is a fantasy. In a fantasy, the author is given a little more leeway about political implications, even if his book makes money. But I wouldn’t count on it, Gregory, I wouldn’t count on it.”

“I won’t,” Gregory said docilely.

“Now that you’re beginning to listen to me, I’ll show you two reviews. We get next Sunday’s book sections on Monday now. That’s one reason I phoned you.” He reached into his pocket and drew out two folded pages of newsprint. “I wish I had Wednesday morning’s instead.”

“Wednesday morning’s?”

“You’ll be reviewed in both papers Wednesday.”

Gregory gulped. It was one thing to be discussing critics in general and another to be faced with two actual reviews and trying to visualize the
Times
and
Tribune
devoting their full book columns to
The Good World
right on publication day. Not one of his books had ever been reviewed the same day it appeared; often, not the same week.
Horn of Plenty
had dropped into a dark void for a month; the first notice of it came in a collective review where it was lumped with three other novels.

Gregory reached for the pages. Ed unfolded and glanced at them first and handed only one across the table. “Page three,” he said with satisfaction, “and a two-column cut.”

It was a long piece; the large heading said, “Incisive Wit, Ingenious Plot.” Gregory glanced at the line and then, at Ed. “It doesn’t sound as if this one’s laying for me.” He read the entire review. “Why, it’s good,” he said. “Most of it is really good. I think he has a point about Voronovsky’s suicide. I never was too certain about it.”

Ed Barnard took it back and read parts of it again. “It’s not what we call ‘a hot selling review,’ but it
is
good.”

Gregory reached for the other one, but Ed still would not yield it. “This is by Bill MacNiccol,” he said cautiously. “You’ve read his novels.”

“Just his first one,
Monday in May.
”

“The only good one of the lot. How could they expect a guy who’s done nothing but dismal repeats ever since to be fair with somebody who manages something fresh each time?”

Gregory laughed. “MacNiccol’s novels dig the same ground pretty often, but out West I read his new book of stories. He still has some freshness.”

Ed snorted. “The two best ones in that appeared ten years ago in the
Atlantic,
before he even wrote
Monday in May.
The jacket blurb didn’t mention that little fact.”

“Well, I’m warned.” Gregory nodded at the second review, but Ed still did not proffer it.

“This belongs to that self-love genre of criticism,” Ed said, “where, after a brief opening, we have to listen to the critic’s superiorities—especially his political ones. On world government, Mr. MacNiccol is right in bed with
Pravda
and. every isolationist in the U.S.A.”

“Hand him over. I’m ready for anything.”

“Some novelists,” the review began, “write out of sheer will power. Will power is essential to the completion of any book, to the long, arduous, patient, lonely effort of writing even four hundred bad pages. Mr. Gregory Johns, whose new novel was swooped upon by the august Best Selling Books and then showered with Hollywood gold, has will power.
The Good World
is four hundred pages long.

“But talent? True wit? Creativeness? Political clarity? Of these, the present reviewer sees not one sign in this dull and endless novel—”

Gregory Johns ordered himself to stay calm; only fury and hatred answered him. To criticize, to find fault, even to parody—these were the rights of anybody invited to review a book, but this outspewing of venom, this savagery?

“Someday you’ll laugh at it,” Ed Barnard put in quietly.

Gregory looked at him.

“Maybe not,” Ed added hastily. “Dickens never got so he could bear the London
Times
reviews. In all his life, the
Times
never gave one of his books anything but cold scorn or full-dress hell.”

Gregory read on to the end. For a long time, then, they discussed MacNiccol’s piece, and Gregory at last regained his composure. But not until he widened the field of his observations to include drama critics and their power did Ed know his self-imposed assignment for the evening was concluded.

“At least,” Gregory said, “half a dozen MacNiccols can’t close the whole country’s book stores by Saturday night.”

“In a couple of Saturday nights,” Ed Barnard said, “MacNiccol’s going to be smashing in Brentano’s windows.” He laughed and was pleased that Gregory could join in. Ed began to fold up both reviews but Gregory said, “No, you don’t. Abby might as well see them now.”

“You’ll have more good ones than MacNiccol thought,” Ed said. “I should have an advance copy of the
Saturday Review
tomorrow and maybe a make-ready of
Time
before the day’s out. That leaves
Newsweek,
the
New Yorker,
and sometime next week the May issues of
Harper’s
and the
Atlantic.
”

“You really think, every one of them right off the bat?”

“This time, it’s going to be right across the board. You’ll see. Are you coming in again tomorrow night?”

“Again? Why, no.”

“At Times Square,” Ed said, “the next day’s papers hit the stands around eleven.”

“I guess we’ll wait till morning.”

But on Tuesday evening, at about ten o’clock, Gregory and Abby Johns simultaneously decided to go for a short spin in their car.

On the great Wednesday, Thornton Johns entered Luther Digby’s office just before ten o’clock and was grabbed by the hand and pumped half off his feet.

“American News,” Digby said, “just reordered another thousand!”

“American News?”

“Biggest book jobbers in the country. Thorn, we’re in! What did I tell you last night when I saw those two reviews?”

Mr. Digby’s secretary ran in without knocking on the door. “Macy’s wants a thousand more,” she cried and ran out again.

“Like old times,” Mr. Digby said. “Just like old times. Sit down, Thorn, sit down. And everybody talking about the slump in the book business—”

His phone rang shrilly and he dived for it. “Seven-fifty? Great guns! Send Jack in, and Alan.” He looked up at Thornton. “Womrath’s,” he said. “It makes seventeen hundred and fifty since last week.”

Thorn sat down. He could scarcely believe that this was Luther Digby, for ten years the Titan of the Textbook Division. The door was flung open and a salesman Thorn knew only by sight came in, spoke rapidly, and departed. “Muncy’s been getting a busy signal for forty minutes. They want another five hundred.”

“Muncy is with Brentano’s,” Digby explained, reaching for a pencil. “Let’s see. A thousand, a thousand, five hundred, seven hundred and fifty—over three thousand already. I haven’t seen anything like it since I don’t know when. Where’s Gregory?”

“He said he might be in. If he doesn’t show soon, I’ll phone him.”

“He gets me sick, missing all this.” Digby looked up in quick apology. “I don’t mean
he
gets me—”

“That’s all right, Luther.” Thorn spoke gently. Any hatchets still extant had been buried at midnight when Digby had telephoned him, demanding to know where Gregory was; he had gone out, his daughter said; was he there? was he expected? had Thorn seen tomorrow’s papers? Did Thorn know what two rave reviews like that would mean in the office in the morning?

“As fast as that!” Digby had insisted. “You get Gregory and come in. You’ll see fireworks, and no carping Sunday reviews will put the brakes on them either.”

Thorn had pondered the metaphors, but only in passing. Remembering MacNiccol’s review, he had thought, Luther would call a blockbuster “carping.” He had tried Gregory’s number repeatedly until, at about one, Hat had said, “I’ll wait up, Uncle. Thorn, I can’t sleep
possibly.
Daddy will call you. Read me the rest of what they say—”

But when Gregory did call, just before two, it was impossible to pin him down about going in or not going in to the office. He might meet Thorn there and might not; Thorn was, to go ahead anyway.

“We’ve been up at Ed’s,” Gregory said. “We can’t believe those reviews yet. We might buy some more
Times
and
Tribs
when we wake up, just to see if they’re still the same.”

Digby’s secretary ran in again. “Doubleday, another six hundred,” she said. “Anybody that answers, they order from.” She disappeared.

“Doubleday?” Thorn said, “Oh, the Doubleday bookstores.” Digby missed it. He was rushing forward to meet Alan Brown and Jack McIntyre. The two men left the door open behind them and their greetings to Thorn took place to the accompaniment of a hubbub he had never before heard in these staid offices. Down the corridor, through open doors, bells rang, voices shouted, feet scurried. Digby raised his voice another decibel and compared notes with Alan and Jack, exchanging figures, adding totals. Alan Brown wore a patient look, but Thorn thought Jack McIntyre was planning a prompt escape.

“We better get on the ball right now with another printing,” Digby said. “How big, do you think? Twenty thousand?”

“We have ten on hand,” McIntyre said. “I just checked stock.”

“Maybe we ought to wait,” Alan Brown said.

“What’s that?” Digby was as shocked as if his partner had spat upon the flag. “Ten thousand will go by Friday.”

“This is Wednesday,” Alan Brown said, with a glance at McIntyre that plainly told him, “You and I will decide this later.”

The sales manager came in, a sheaf of notes in his hand. “Dimondstein’s five hundred, Beacon Hill fifty, Chaucer Head fifty, Byrne and Cooper ninety, even the Waldorf book stand—they couldn’t get through to American News, so they called direct.” He looked up triumphantly and then rushed through the rest of his slips. “Forty, sixty, twenty-five, a hundred, fifty—get this—the Columbia U. Shop wants another fifty by lunchtime.”

“May I use the phone?” Thorn said. “I’d like to tell Gregory about this if he’s not coming in—”

“We’ll put thirty thousand on press,” Digby interrupted, his voice raised, his face red. “Or we’re, out of stock in two weeks.” He faced his colleagues and slapped his desk. “We’ve been small potatoes for so long we’ve forgotten how to be big punkins. I’m calling Chicago right now, so Kroch’s and Max Siegel will know what’s happening and get set. Alan, you get on to Boston and Philadelphia, Washington too. Get somebody to cover Cleveland and St. Louis and Indianapolis. Thorn, I’ll be with you in a minute—stay right there.”

Thorn had no intention of leaving. So this was what a “runaway best seller” meant. This was how even a Luther Digby could become a generalissimo, this was what McIntyre had meant, months ago, when he had wistfully said, “If you ever get hold of one, you know it by ten o’clock in the morning.”