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A few months ago a friend sent me an Internet link to an essay written by David Benioff, author of The 25th Hour. Yes, I have friends. In the essay, the author discussed how hard it was to get the book published, and how the book dropped off the face of the Earth until Spike Lee and Ed Norton decided to make it into a movie. Up until the movie part, I was thinking, rock on, Dave, I feel you. Because my own book Lifers also dropped off the face of the Earth after it was published. The difference, of course, being that neither Spike Lee nor Ed Norton ever decided to make my little book into a movie. Also, David Benioff manages to not look dorky in his back-cover photo. I had to resort to hiding my face as much as possible, fearing ssles would suffer otherwise. I recently spied a copy of The 25th Hour in one of my Used Book Stores and bought it for one dollar, and so had an opportunity to read it. And now I feel even more anger towards the universe than usual, because the similarities between Mr. Benioff's book and mine lead me to believe that I could just as easily be the guy they paid $1.8 million for an old script I wrote five years ago. Except of course that I don't have an old script, having written only one script in my life, which was an episode of the old TV series Sliders. It's a long story having nothing to do with actually liking the show, trust me. The 25th Hour is about Monty Brogan, a small-time drug dealer connected to the Russian Mob, who has been flipped and is looking at seven years in a maximum security prison. His father has put up his bar as collateral against his bail, so he's walking around free the night before he's due to report to prison. His childhood friends (a milquetoast schoolteacher and a stock broker with a temper management problem) are accompanying him to a party being thrown by his underworld friends at a hot club in Manhattan, and Monty is struggling to find a way to make up for his sins, say goodbye to his old life, and survive his upcoming incarceration, all in his last day of freedom. It's a pretty good book; not exactly deep, but it held my interest for the week or so it took me to read it on the bus home from work every day. I'm happy for Mr. Benioff, really I am. He's a good writer, and in that essay I read (the link is, sadly, lost to my memory) he was satisfyingly humble about his good luck and realistic about everything. I wish him no harm. But for fuck's sake, if his book can become a movie and get a huge boost from the marketing machine of Hollywood, it makes me think I somehow got shafted. Let's consider the similarities between my book and his. If you haven't read both, you're going to have just trust me here. If you haven't read his, that's fine. If you haven't read mine, I demand that you send me $2.25 (my royalty) immediately. The books both involve three young, twenty-something male characters who are friends but aren't always so nice to each other, involved in some sort of illegal activity. There's only one female character of consequence in both. They're both set in the New York City area. They're both fairly short novels, possibly more novellas in the strictest sense. Most importantly, though this is a purely subjective impression, while reading his book I thought that our styles were entirely compatible. We wrote kind of the same book: Young men trying to break the bonds of their dull lives, trying to figure out what was right and wrong, and whether friendship mattered. Sort of-work with me, here. The point is, I really felt that the people who read The 25th Hour and thought it would be a kick-ass movie would have thought the same about Lifers. Sigh. Jealousy? You bet. But it does underscore something I've come to believe about the whole business of publishing: There's a lot of luck involved, a lot of lucky timing. I can't say for sure that Spike Lee would have read my book and thought, fuck yea, this is my next joint, but if he thought that about The 25th Hour, I think there's a good chance he would have thought that about my book if only it had been a few places higher in the pile. Just like I think getting published is often the simple combination of being in the right person's hands (an Editor who digs your style) at the right time (when they're looking to add a title to the list). Hit both those targets at the same time, and you're sold. Hit one but not the other, or hit them at different times, and you're screwed. Oh well. Less time spent drinking champagne in the back of a limo and doing talk shows to discuss my huge Hollywood deals means more Inner Swine product for you, you lucky people. If I were a paranoid man, I might think some of you may have sabotaged my chances in order to slake your lust for free Somers material. But I am not paranoid. I am peace-loving and gentle. And generally too drunk to summon the kind of mental energy conspiracy theories require. So there will be no righteous vengance upon you. Yet. Besides, my agent is valiantly trying to sell my next novel as we speak. There's always next time. Until that glorious day, however, feel free to tell me what you think of these columns. You bastards. Jeff |
December 15, 2003