The Nix(100)

“You’re making it sound like a public service.”

“There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable. And yes, it is a public service. You want to know my secret hope for your book?”

“Sure.”

“That it’s the one to replace Molly’s on the best-seller list. You know why?”

“I find that wildly improbable.”

“Because there are very few products that appeal to those two groups of people: the angry and the ignorant. Very few products can make that jump.”

“But my mom’s story—”

“We’ve tested this. Your mom has huge crossover appeal. This is rare and usually unpredictable, the thing that pops out of culture and becomes universal. Everyone sees what they want to see in your mom, everyone gets to be offended in their own special way. Your mother’s story allows people of any political stripe to say ‘Shame on you,’ which is just delicious these days. It’s no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it’s sanctimony.”

“I’ll be sure to work on that.”

“Remember, less empathy, more carnage. That’s advice, me to you. And by the way? Those ghostwriters we used for Molly’s book? They’re available. I have them on retainer, should you need assistance writing your book.”

“No thank you.”

“They are seriously professional and discreet.”

“I can write the book myself.”

“I’m sure you would like to write the book yourself, but your record is not what I might call promising, book-finishing-wise.”

“This time is different.”

“I’m not judging you, simply pointing out certain historical facts. Speaking of which? All these years, I have never asked: Why couldn’t you finish your first book?”

“It’s not that I couldn’t finish it—”

“I’m curious. What happened? Did I not send enough letters of encouragement and praise? Did you lose your inspiration? Did your ambition buckle under the weight of expectations? Were you—what do they call it—blocked?”

“None of those things, really. I just made a few bad decisions.”

“A few bad decisions. That’s how people explain a hangover.”

“There were some poor choices made, on my part.”

“That is a pretty blithe way of explaining your total failure to become a famous writer.”

“You know, I’d always wanted to be a famous writer. I thought being a famous writer would help me solve certain problems. And then suddenly I was a famous writer and the problems weren’t solved at all.”

“Certain problems?”

“Let’s just say there was a girl involved.”

“Oh lord, I’m sorry I asked.”

“A girl I very much wanted to make a big impression on.”

“Let me guess. You became a writer to impress a girl. And then you didn’t get the girl.”

“Yes.”

“This happens, not surprisingly, all the time.”

“I keep thinking I could have gotten it right. I could have gotten the girl. I just needed to do things a little differently. I just needed to make some better choices.”





YOU CAN GET THE GIRL!


A Choose Your Own Adventure Story


This is no ordinary story. In this story, the outcome depends on the decisions you make. Think carefully about your choices, as they will affect how the story ends.

You are a timid and shy and hopeless young man who for some reason wants to be a novelist.

A really important one. Like a really big deal. Award-winning, even. You think that the way to fix the problem of your life is to become a famous author. But how?

Turns out, it’s easy. You don’t know it, but you already have all the qualities you will need. Everything is already in motion.

First, and this is essential: You feel hopelessly, irredeemably unloved.

You feel abandoned and unappreciated by the people in your life.

Especially women.

Especially your mother.

Your mother and a certain girl you become obsessed with in childhood, a girl who makes you feel all woozy and manic and fuzzy-headed and disconsolate. Her name is Bethany, and she does to you roughly what fire does to a log.

Her family moves to the East Coast shortly after your mother abandons you. These events are not related, but they feel connected in your head, the great pivot point of your life, that month in early autumn when your childhood cracks in two. When she leaves, Bethany promises she will write, and she does: Every year, once a year, on your birthday, you get a letter from Bethany. And you read it and write back immediately, write like a maniac until three o’clock in the morning, draft after failed draft, trying to achieve exactly the perfect letter to send back to her. Then for a month afterward your mailbox-checking is obsessive-compulsive. But nothing comes, not for another year, when on your birthday another letter from Bethany arrives, full of updates. She is living in D.C. now. She is still playing the violin. She is taking lessons from all the best people. They say she has great promise. Her brother is going to a military boarding school. He loves it. Her father spends most of his time in their Manhattan apartment now. The trees are blooming. Bishop says hi. School is nice.