Part 1 (1/2)
Undo.
by Joe Hutsko.
INTRODUCTION TO THE ELECTRONIC EDITION
”What a long, strange trip it's been.”
-- The Grateful Dead
As nearly as I can remember, I began writing this novel in the summer of '88, after leaving my job at Apple Computer, Inc., where I worked for almost four years for former Apple chairman John Sculley, as his personal technology advisor. It was a neat job t.i.tle and a lot of fun, but somewhere in there I decided I wanted to become a novelist. Eight years and two t.i.tle-changes later, the first novel that I set out to write, known these days as ”Undo,” is finally available to readers in this special electronic edition, free of charge.
Electronic books, or e-texts, have been available for some time now so this is hardly groundbreaking news. Or is it? For me, it's a pretty big deal. Primarily because the electronic books that are available to download from the Internet, the World Wide Web, and online services such as CompuServe and America Online, were published previously in hardback or paperback editions, or both. Bruce Sterling's ”The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier,” for example, was first published in hardback by Bantam in 1992, then in 1993 in paperback, also by Bantam. Sterling wisely retained the electronic rights to his book so that he may - electronically speaking - do as he pleases with his work. To the best of my knowledge, Sterling is the first author to give away his published, in-print book for free on the Net.
I don't know how many people who download e-books actually read them from cover-to-cover, though I suspect the number is rather low. Mainly because the medium isn't as easy on the eyes as traditional paper-based books. I would bet that most people who download e-books - and I'm talking about novels, vs. reference works - browse them part of the way, then delete them from their computer or PDA. As for works of non-fiction, such as Sterling's book, or the enormously serviceable ”Elements of Style” (which has recently appeared in e-book format), readers refer to these works on a need-to-know basis. But novels, they're another story.
A novel is something you curl up with and, if it's a good one, lose yourself in, much the way Alice found herself getting lost in that fantastic looking gla.s.s. Perhaps the valuable thing about publis.h.i.+ng a novel as an e-text is that it gives readers a taste for the story and for the author's style, so that the reader can then go out and purchase the published edition if they want to.
But let's get back to ”Undo,” and why making it available for free in this electronic book version is so important to me. The reason is simple: I want people to read it, and this is - so far, anyway - the only way to make that happen. For, despite the hard-fought efforts of not one, not two, but three very reputable literary agents, the book, unlike Mr. Sterling's works, has not found a trade publisher it can call home.
Why? The answer to this question is best summed up by Bantam editor Brian Tart, in his recent letter of rejection:
Ms. Juliet Nicolson Juliet Nicolson Ltd. Literary Agency 71 Chester Row London England SW1W 8JL
Dear Juliet:
Thank you for dropping off Joe Hutsko's ms. while you were in New York. I must say that I am impressed with Mr. Hutsko's writing and believe him to be a talent to watch in the future. His story, however, seemed to me to be a bit stale - it seems to be about six or eight years too late in the making - as I could see, and indeed have seen, this kind of corporate intrigue take place in the world of non-fiction. Because the plot was not as timely as it would need to be to succeed in the commercial marketplace, I will have to pa.s.s.
Please do keep me informed of Mr. Hutsko's projects, should he decide to embark upon writing another ms.
Sincerely, [Signed]
Brian Tart a.s.sociate Editor
Enc.
Give or take a few sentiments, the gist of Mr. Tart's encouraging but ultimately downer letter was repeated by all of the top trade publis.h.i.+ng houses. A number of enthusiastic editors - in particular a young editor named John Michel, who pleaded with his senior editors to acquire the novel first at HarperCollins, then later when he moved to Crown (and who has since become a friend, so something good has survived those battles) - tried their best to acquire the book, and in one case an offer was extended to my then-agent, but then two days later the publisher backed out, apologizing that the editor who'd made the offer was in no position to do so, please forgive the error in our ways.
The really troubling thing for me was that when I set out to write my novel, another novel called ”The Bonfire of the Vanities,” by Tom Wolfe, had taken the reading population by storm. Was not Mr. Wolfe's novel inspired by real-life, by the bond trading schemes that at the time were making front page news? Readers of fiction turned the book into a best-seller, and as one of those readers, I cannot say that I would have read the book were Tom Wolfe to have written it as a non-fiction t.i.tle.
That it was inspired by actual characters and events, and turned by Wolfe's expert hands into a compelling modern-day tale of murder and mortality, were enough to convince me that I could pull off the same sort of magic with my own ”what if” scenario, swapping Silicon Valley for New York, and the personal computer business for bond trading.
That this was my first attempt at writing a novel goes a long way toward explaining the earliest rejections of the work, then t.i.tled ”Silicon Dreams,” by editors unlucky enough to have had it land with a thud on their desks. Somehow I'd lost sight of Mr.
Wolfe's excellent ill.u.s.tration and found myself mimicking, all at once, the likes of Sidney Sheldon, Arthur Hailey, Jackie Collins, and, believe it or not, Stephen King (who happens to be my favorite mainstream read). With so many influences at play in the already befuddled head of an aspiring young writer with dreams of hitting the number one spot on all of the best-seller lists, you (and of course I, this much later) can understand how my storytelling ability left something to be desired.
Still, I pressed on, heeding suggestions I believed were valid (such as: ”How dare you kill that character in the middle of the book just because you don't know what to do with her next!”).
More than once I put the whole thing on the shelf to give it, and myself, a breather; to put a little s.p.a.ce between us so that our respective flaws could be considered the next time around with a clearer, colder eye. Four rewrites later, including a no-holds-barred excising, I finally had a book, still known then as ”Silicon Dreams,” that I believed was as good as it was going to get.
And then it happened. A publisher bought it. I had the literary critic Digby Diehl to thank for this good news. At the time Digby was a book reviewer for ”Playboy,” and also a daily book columnist for the Prodigy online service (where I'd done a brief stint ghost writing for a highly paid high-tech a.n.a.lyst who will remain unnamed). Via e-mail I asked Digby if he'd read my novel and, if he liked it, to suggest editors who may want to take a look at it. Well, Digby'd read it and liked it - enough to personally pa.s.s it along to the head of a new and small-but-going-for-the-big-time publisher named Knightsbridge Publis.h.i.+ng, an imprint distributed by the reputable Hearst Corporation. Knightsbridge was founded around the time of the Gulf War, and made its killing, so to speak, with a ma.s.s market paperback best-seller, ”The Rape of Kuwait.”