Jack and Irene #2

Posted on March 4, 2000

---

 

In the past I’ve mentioned my friends, Jackson and Irene Darling. I met them for lunch this week at Morton’s Steak House. For those of you who have never been to this chain, it is an exercise in gluttony. The portions are so large (with prices to match) that mere mention of "Morton’s for lunch" implies that you won’t be having dinner that night or breakfast the next morning. Morton’s is the "Russian Tea Room" outside of New York City.

Jack is a ex-intellectual property lawyer turned novelist. He writes spy thriller and adventure novels, often characterized as pulp fiction, and has been published by a number of the large New York pulp houses. Irene is the founder and chief executive of Faranganar Press, an independent house that, among other things, publishes both business books and "capitalist fiction," sort of on the order of "Wall Street" or "Kane and Able" but none as successful.

Jack was just pouring the wine when I arrived. Sitting down, I noticed that Jack and I were dressed as twins with our post yuppie blazer/docker look; sans tie. At 53, still in good shape and with just a touch of gray, Jack looked the way all aging male boomers hope they will look.

"I wish my publisher would keep one of my books in print as long as this wine has been in the bottle," said Jack as he poured me a glass of the Mondavi ’96 White Cabernet. Watching the golden liquid splash into the glass, my mind wandered to the question of whether Eric Anderson or Pete Masterson, our resident tech-heads, would enjoy a wine that didn’t have a screw top.

Irene, three years younger than Jack, but a dozen years older emotionally, had on her power silks, pearls and full regalia of war paint. She had let her dark (as she called it "bottle brunette") hair grow out a bit, down to her shoulders and it was not hard to see why people would mistake her for looking like the late Jackie O did in her later prime. With her 5-11 height, 30 waist and 38 top, she is one of the most striking woman I've ever known, and I've known her (and Jack) since college days. In fact, there was a time in '74 when Irene and I were stoned on some Acupulco Gold (yes there really was such a thing) and she showed me something about... well it was a long time ago.... but not something a 5-6 nerd easily forgets.

"Really, Jack, what can you expect of the reading public? They get a new TV show each night, new software upgrades each month, and sometimes a new lover each year! Nobody is looking for a classic book. The big houses just pander to the ‘instant’ generation," Irene said before taking a long sip of wine and closing her eyes. I could tell she was remembering the days of our youth (which seems only six weeks ago!) when we would all sit around a candle, take a hit on the pipe and a sip of Annie Green Springs, and say "Good sheet, man. Can you dig it?" She and Jack met in '73 but didn't get married until '79. It wasn't supposed to last.

"What about Faranganar Press," I asked. "Don’t you look for the fad business book of the season?"

Irene flashed me her famous dark eyes, sat up straight, threw out her ample chest and I knew I was in for one of her famous lectures.

"First of all, Alan dear, we don’t call it a ‘fad’ book," Irene said with a look of mock disdain. "We understand that all markets have cycles and that businesses react to various styles of management. In short, we look for authors who have developed a style that has not had a recent cycle. There is a definite and precise methodology of market research that we go through before we decide on a product. Unlike you at Adams-Blake, we don't just 'roll our own'. If you had paid attention during our business classes instead of you and Jack playing guessing games in the back of the classroom as to who was a virgin and who wasn't..and we all knew both of YOU were... you might understand the basic principles of product differentiation. "

Jack winked at me. "What my dear wife is trying to say through all the bullshit is that she wants to cash in on whatever the business buzz-word is at the moment. It’s all a crapshoot. She’s had Total Quality Management, Employee Empowerment, and management via all sorts of animals like sharks, lions, and falcons. I wonder when we’ll see a Kangaroo Management book. Dummies are popular! And who knows more about idiotic management than book publishers," said Jack as a Baywatch look-a-like waitress came to take our order.

Jack and I ordered steak, while Irene decided on the fish of the day. I wondered if their freezer was large enough to hold a thousand pound salmon, which I’m sure would be the size of her lunch. I also noticed that the full figured waitress did not escape Jack’s admiration.

"Did you know that you are serving a famous author?" Jack asked the flaxen blonde server. "Maybe you’ve read one of my thriller novels."

"Way cool," the young beauty replied. "Did you write the Goosebumps series? No. Don't tell me. I saw you on Millionaire. You're Harry Porter. No. Al Gore. Wait. I know MJ Rose in drag? Cat Stevens? The Duke of Earl? Like really. I know you. Oh. Yes. OK, you're that Wilheim Shakespere guy, right? You wrote "A Mid Summer's Night's Screw?" Or was it "Oh, I Like It!"

"Well, not exactly Shakespere, but close. Let me write the title of my newest book and you can go buy it, seeing as you've just met the author," he said scribbling the name of his latest tome on a napkin. Irene hung her head hoping the wine would erase all memories of this incident, one I’m sure has happened a thousand times before. Jack was always a ‘ladies man’ and never missed a chance to make known his manly charms. But as usual, at least in my experiences with him, the young blond turned, walked away toward the kitchen, leaving Jack feeling a bit older than when he walked in.

"It’s like those trash novels you write, Jack dear. It’s all a numbers game. One of your novels reads like another. And your stories are much the same, sometimes as bad, dear husband, as those of the other authors in your genre. Publishers have no more an idea of which one of your silly books will sell than I know when or if Ingrams will send me a check" offered Irene trying to hide the fact that the wine was starting to give her a buzz.

"Pay no attention. She’s bombed," said Jack looking at me. "She only wishes that her books would sell as many copies as mine do."

"It IS amazing to me that so many of them DO sell. It’s a wonderful testament to the dumbing down of the country," Irene said with somewhat glazed eyes.

"OK, my books are not Pulitzer winners. But people want escapism and who better than I to give it to them," said Jack grinning at Irene. "It’s not a lawyer’s salary, but you’ve never had your Talbot’s card refused!"

I could tell that the wine had really hit Irene. "You and Danielle Steele winning Pulitzers is my worst literary nightmare."

I was hoping lunch would arrive before Irene fell off the chair.

Jack was not concerned as I’m sure he has seen Irene fall off lots of chairs in the past 21 years of their turbulent up-and-down marriage. "I only wish I sold as well as Danielle. But Irene’s point is well taken," Jack said turning to me. "The big houses pump out more books than they know they will sell because they don’t know what books on their list WILL sell. They figure if you throw enough spy novels at the public, one of them is sure to surface as a winner."

"And a lot of this is the fault of the distribution and retail channel," Irene slurred as a different waitress, this one more of a Janet Reno look-a-like, delivered our lunch; two plates with one cow apiece and one plate with a salmon the size of Connecticut. "The superstores have space and need to fill up the shelves. They don’t want to do it with Dickens or Shakespeare. Even if there are a zillion books on buying stocks and bonds, people will still buy the same old books retold in new covers by new authors."

"And don't worry. The space will get filled. I know that publishers are now insisting on multi-book contracts from their stable of authors. And the deadlines are tight," said Jack as he cut into the first hundred pounds of steak on his plate. "My agent, ‘Barracuda’ Bonnie Sloan told me to expect the same from Windom House, who has the current mortgage on my soul. The ‘cuda’ says a big part of the push for volume is also coming from the on-line sectors of the retail trade. Amazon, C-Books, B&N and others have no physical limits when it comes to cyberspace. They figure the more books, the more choice, the more sales. It doesn’t cost them much to list a book on a web page."

"And they get the damn things virtually for free," Irene said, looking something like Hemingway’s Old Man and The Sea with that huge salmon on her plate

"But the books have to be somewhere," I remarked, trying to cut through a baked potato the size of Michael Jordan’s shoe. "Won’t Ingram run out of space?"

"No dear, not this week, I don’t think," said Irene. The food was sobering her up. "But my refrigerator will run out if we try to take home what we can ’t eat. My Ingram buyer said that warehouse space is cheap, easy to manage, and can be leased for a short term. They see the threat of ‘virtual warehouse’ concepts such as Allbooks and Nautilus and are taking steps to make sure they can stock every book by every publisher. Indeed, the small publisher’s long lament about the inability of getting into Ingram will not be an issue in the next few years as the Tennessee Book Mafia increases their storage space. Of course, Ingram is still playing ‘hard to get’ with small publishers so that some will join the silly program of sending 5 free books as a ‘start-up’. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them charge a new-publisher fee like Baker and Taylor does. What small five-book publisher would object to paying $125 to get into the hallowed halls of Lady Ingram?"

"So what will that do to Allbooks or Nautilus?" I asked, praying that no one would force dessert on me.

Jack put down his fork, and looked rather distressed, wanting to burp but not having the courage. Law school does that to you. "Ingram is just like this restaurant chain. They want the reputation of being having the most services and the largest collection. If something like online ordering of books looks promising, I’m sure Ingram will start their own on-line order service and send the orders to their warehouses or e-mail them to publishers who sign with Ingram but who don’t wish to be stocked in return for a lesser discount. Thus, Ingram can cover both bases. They are the Microsoft of books.But unitl Amazon shows that it can be done at a profit, Ingram will sit on the sidelines."

"Well, from they way they keep their accounts, I think they are the Darth Vader to publishers," said Irene as she passed around DiGel tablets to all of us. "But that’s old news, isn’t it?" She gave what looked like a new AMEX Gold Card to the our original Baywatch waitress and when the charge slip came back, she signed it. "Jack, dear, you can leave the tip. She seems to have caught your fancy, so make sure you are generous. I hope it doesn’t cost you your royalties for the whole month," she smirked.

We slowly extracted ourselves out of our chairs, each of us feeling like our own version of Fat Albert. I saw the blond waitress in the corner getting an eyeful of Jack. It wasn’t the first time I had seen a young girl fantasize about Jack. But as we left the dining room I couldn’t help but notice that Irene turned several heads as she walked down the main aisle. She knew she was good looking and so did Jack. They have had their ups and downs, but they have stayed together longer than most people I know, especially in the publishing and entertainment industry.

Jack and I walked out of Morton’s while Irene visited the powder room. "Irene drank like she was worried. How is Faranganar Press doing," I asked him.

"Oh, don’t worry about Irene. She got an offer to sell a stock market mystery called ‘B is for Broker' to Random for six figures. It’s a hell of a manuscript and I think she is going to keep it for herself. I told her to take the money and run. But you know how stubborn Irene is. Why do you think she offered to pay the bill? She knows she has a winner."

"What about you? Can you get three more spy pulps out this year?" I asked.

"I don’t know. For the international market Windom House wants another set in Scandinavia in the winter. What am I going to call it ‘The Spy Who Stayed Out In the Cold?’"

Irene returned, we said our farewells, and as we walked in different directions, I could hear Irene saying "Really Jack, I don’t think UPS will deliver the leftovers no matter how large a tip you left. This is not New York! And did you really think that young girl would know you? Your ego is just too much sometimes. It gives ME the goosebumps!"

Copyright 1996 by Alan N. Canton. This material may not be re-published on any Internet listserv or Usenet newsgroup without prior permission by the copyright holder. Any other re-publication is prohibited without express permission of the copyright holder

Copyright © Alan Canton 2022. - Designed by NewMedia Create