She would undoubtedly sell the stories for me.
I was encouraged. Maiden’s agent was a senior member of one of the better-known literary agencies of the period. She said she would see me. I can’t remember the woman’s name; Ispent many years trying to forget it and seem at last to have succeeded. There were two literary agencies with offices at the Fleet Street end of the Strand. My appointment was in the smaller of the two. I went to keep it with a light heart.
She was a handsome woman with neatly bobbed hair and long earrings. She smiled at me in a kindly way as I sat down facing her. Then she picked up my three stories from the desk in front of her and dropped them again as if to see if they would bounce. When they didn’t she gave me a thinner smile.
‘Trash I expect you call it,’ she said. ‘Well, that’s as may be. What it isn’t is publishable trash. You make a mistake you clever young men. You think you can write down to the market. You think it’s easy to write trash. You’re wrong. It’s easy to write imitation trash. It’s quite difficult to write the real thing. For that you have to have a knack and, I’m afraid, a certain talent. On the evidence of these stories all you have is the trick of parody. Perhaps you agree, eh?’
‘I was wondering why you bothered to see me.’
‘I was coming to that. You don’t really want to write stories do you?’
‘No, not really.’ Lying seemed easy by then.
‘Good, I didn’t think so. Have you met Cecil Maiden’s wife?’
‘Yes, I have. They asked me for a weekend.’
‘Pretty woman. But she’s too indulgent. The trouble is that Cecil gets these crushes on good-looking young men and tries to persuade them that they have writing talent.’ It was all said with the sweetest of smiles. ‘The Edwardians used to call it literary seduction I believe. I don’t know what it’s called now. Perhaps you can think of something.’ She stopped smiling and held up the three typescripts. ‘Do you want these back?’
‘No thank you.’
She dropped them in the waste-basket by her desk. ‘It was good of you to call. Tell Cecil I thought you showed great promise. He’ll understand.’
But I was already at the door and on my way out. When I was back in the street again I tried for a moment to be sick, then went into a Lyons and had a cup of tea. It was years before I could pass that bit of the Strand without my toes curling at the memory. In the tea-shop I vowed never again to write a short story.
Instead I wrote an anachronistic thriller about a small state in Eastern Europe that succeeds in making an atomic bomb. It was published in 1936. That was the year the Spanish Civil War began, the year that started many of us, even copywriters in advertising agencies, thinking about the nature of a war to come. Suddenly I found myself with something to write about. By the summer of 1939 I had written five thrillers and was living comfortably in Paris. My fifth book was
The Mask of Dimitrios
and it was to be published in London as a
Daily Mail
Book-of-the-Month.
The month in question, however, was August ’39, not a good month for books, nor indeed for much else in Europe. In those days the only Harry’s Bar of any note outside Italy was the one in Paris. It was on the rue Blanche just down the hill from Bricktop’s, the other friendly night-spot within easy walking distance of the Pigalle Metro. My companion in both places was Louise Crombie, fashion artist, born in Portland, Oregon, divorced and working in Paris to support a young family back in New Jersey. On the night of the twenty-second we were drinking brandy and soda and trying to decide whether to face the complications of an Anglo-American marriage under French law or to go on living together without legal or clerical blessings. There was going to be a war, but what sort of war? Who were going to be the allies against Hitler?
It was to Harry’s Bar that night we went in search of news. There,
I was encouraged. Maiden’s agent was a senior member of one of the better-known literary agencies of the period. She said she would see me. I can’t remember the woman’s name; Ispent many years trying to forget it and seem at last to have succeeded. There were two literary agencies with offices at the Fleet Street end of the Strand. My appointment was in the smaller of the two. I went to keep it with a light heart.
She was a handsome woman with neatly bobbed hair and long earrings. She smiled at me in a kindly way as I sat down facing her. Then she picked up my three stories from the desk in front of her and dropped them again as if to see if they would bounce. When they didn’t she gave me a thinner smile.
‘Trash I expect you call it,’ she said. ‘Well, that’s as may be. What it isn’t is publishable trash. You make a mistake you clever young men. You think you can write down to the market. You think it’s easy to write trash. You’re wrong. It’s easy to write imitation trash. It’s quite difficult to write the real thing. For that you have to have a knack and, I’m afraid, a certain talent. On the evidence of these stories all you have is the trick of parody. Perhaps you agree, eh?’
‘I was wondering why you bothered to see me.’
‘I was coming to that. You don’t really want to write stories do you?’
‘No, not really.’ Lying seemed easy by then.
‘Good, I didn’t think so. Have you met Cecil Maiden’s wife?’
‘Yes, I have. They asked me for a weekend.’
‘Pretty woman. But she’s too indulgent. The trouble is that Cecil gets these crushes on good-looking young men and tries to persuade them that they have writing talent.’ It was all said with the sweetest of smiles. ‘The Edwardians used to call it literary seduction I believe. I don’t know what it’s called now. Perhaps you can think of something.’ She stopped smiling and held up the three typescripts. ‘Do you want these back?’
‘No thank you.’
She dropped them in the waste-basket by her desk. ‘It was good of you to call. Tell Cecil I thought you showed great promise. He’ll understand.’
But I was already at the door and on my way out. When I was back in the street again I tried for a moment to be sick, then went into a Lyons and had a cup of tea. It was years before I could pass that bit of the Strand without my toes curling at the memory. In the tea-shop I vowed never again to write a short story.
Instead I wrote an anachronistic thriller about a small state in Eastern Europe that succeeds in making an atomic bomb. It was published in 1936. That was the year the Spanish Civil War began, the year that started many of us, even copywriters in advertising agencies, thinking about the nature of a war to come. Suddenly I found myself with something to write about. By the summer of 1939 I had written five thrillers and was living comfortably in Paris. My fifth book was
The Mask of Dimitrios
and it was to be published in London as a
Daily Mail
Book-of-the-Month.
The month in question, however, was August ’39, not a good month for books, nor indeed for much else in Europe. In those days the only Harry’s Bar of any note outside Italy was the one in Paris. It was on the rue Blanche just down the hill from Bricktop’s, the other friendly night-spot within easy walking distance of the Pigalle Metro. My companion in both places was Louise Crombie, fashion artist, born in Portland, Oregon, divorced and working in Paris to support a young family back in New Jersey. On the night of the twenty-second we were drinking brandy and soda and trying to decide whether to face the complications of an Anglo-American marriage under French law or to go on living together without legal or clerical blessings. There was going to be a war, but what sort of war? Who were going to be the allies against Hitler?
It was to Harry’s Bar that night we went in search of news. There,
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