Lost Hills Books became a reality last December, when the two titles featured on the website arrived from the printer. I promptly sent copies to a person living in my town who writes book news for a magazine. She and I are members of a large, regional writers’ group, and of course I thought I might receive a response. Nope. Recently, I emailed her to ask if the books had been received and if she might be able to mention them in print. She replied that she doesn’t read unsolicited books and that mine had been passed on to charity. Splat.

As a check on my perspective, I’ll tell a story I’ve told on myself before. I taught English at Loyola University New Orleans in the 1970’s, and somewhere around 1977 Walker Percy agreed to drive over the causeway from Covington a couple of times a week to teach a creative writing class in our department. His presence was a gift to the university and a definite feather in our cap. Department members promised to see that things went smoothly for him, which included insulating him from people who might show up seeking favors. Walker had been a bit of a recluse in Covington.

Two or three weeks into the semester, I answered my office phone to hear a strident voice demand to talk to Walker Percy about her son’s manuscript. I explained that Walker was not accepting additional students and that I was not free to give his home phone number.

Two days later, Thelma Toole charged into Walker’s office, plopped the manuscript on his desk, and informed him that he must read it. It was by her dead son, whom she characterized as a genius. At that time, Thelma had a reputation around town as an eccentric, but no one knew much about her son, John Kennedy, who had committed suicide in 1969. Always the gentleman, Walker agree to read the manuscript, which I’m told was a physical mess.

But Walker recognized the brilliance of the writing. We published a chapter in New Orleans Review, and Walker got LSU Press to publish the novel. A year later, Confederacy of Dunces was picked up by a big Eastern publisher, and from that platform it won the Pulitzer Prize. Yes, it’s a cliche, but I laughed and cried when I read it. It’s a great book, and fortunately my little effort to keep the gate closed had failed.

Within a year or two, I became one of three editors of New Orleans Review. My firmest rule was to read submissions promptly and respond to everyone, not a difficult rule to keep on a small, university-based magazine. In the larger world of commercial publishing today, things are different.

A few weeks ago a piece in The New York Times Book Review talked about how fewer and fewer people are buying books, whereas more and more books are being written. Under these conditions, the channels for publishing and marketing are clogged. Agents and publishers won’t read manuscripts without impressive recommendations–like, say, from Walker Percy–and large-city newspapers rarely review books from small presses. The traffic is congested, and each intersection or on-ramp is at a standstill.

So I shouldn’t blame the local acquaintance who ignored my efforts. I’m sure her dance card is full. I could try to blame the usual suspects, George Bush, Carl Rove, et al, but they’re too busy mucking up other corners of the world. (Yes, Carl’s still at it somewhere, trust me.) But maybe it’s God, getting back at us for writing about gay sex and planned parenthood. Or perhaps Jupiter has aligned with Mars.

The hardest thing is to realize that the book world is what it is and whining won’t help. I like whining, and my wife tells me it’s such an attractive feature in a man.

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