By Rudy Wilson

Over the years since the Knopf published The Red Truck, two other books have come out, with smaller book publishers, never with the clout of Knopf, and never seen by Gordon Lish as he had left Knopf by then.

Gordon continued to be magnanimous. He wrote, “”Excellent Rudy What a dear heart you are to write. I am so glad you are of high heart and I am always happy to read anything you wish me to – for Q or for Knopf… All yours, signed GL.”  He said more than once, “We write for God and art.” I brought up Bret Easton Ellis’s success, and he said, “Well, maybe, but once you get dirt on the floor, you will never get it clean.”

Some years later The Red Truck was published by a second press, which was inept and sold maybe fifty books in a year. Gordon sent condolences and suggested I read his most recent book, Zimzum.  I asked him advice on how to run a Writers’ Workshop and humbly, he laughed and said, “You’re asking me?”

His latest, probably last note to me, last summer was so perplexing. It concerned the third, out-of-mothballs publication of the battered  Red Truck, with Ravenna Press. I sent him a copy, as well as a second book they printed, a collection of short fiction I had published over many years, Sonja’s Blue.

His note read, oddly, surprisingly: “Thanks for the book! Curious – that you did not like Knopf, especially given the citations (from reviews) on the back cover, too, that your kindness nowhere mentions the distance and manner of The Red Truck’s travel from original ms. to finished ms. Do you remember? Are you aware? Are you willing to give credit? Explain, please.” No signature.

I felt confused, even sad. I had no control over the new issue’s cover art or jacket information. Perhaps I should have dedicated the book to Gordon or put his name on the cover. I recalled, thinly, “I wish I could put my name on it…” Maybe I’d hurt or not credited the man enough, somehow.

There was always a sense of isolation about Gordon Lish. He presided in a position of personal power, a master in his world, well-respected, with strong opinions, and a history of making and breaking of authors. And yet, his notes to me over the many years and the most recent one indicate and inform me that he is a man of heart and sensitivity, humor, even with a certain fragility after all this time of infamy in the business. He was my friend. And I give him all the credit he deserves.

I’ve pretty much ridden the Red Truck into the ground. It sits outside in my tall-grassed, back yard, silently, a faded, now red-orangish, 1950 pickup, cracked windshield, birds’ nests in the front seat with wild flowers and weeds in the back truck-bed. A sentimental icon of the years: there’s the worn steering wheel, having been to NYC many times. Somewhere, in the glove compartment would be a black and white picture, twenty or more years old of myself and Mr. Lish, Capt. Fiction, standing close to me on a Manhattan sidewalk, uptown – one of us smiling.

By Rudy Wilson

The editing process began, the correspondence with Lish mainly on typed Knopf notepaper, and the calls, after he insisted I get a phone.  Once, I had a very violent scene from Taxi Driver, as my outgoing phone-machine message and came home to a message from Gordon.

“For my trouble today, in calling you, I got the sickest answering message… get back to me soonest. Click.” It was awhile before I heard from Mr. Lish again. But it was basically all very good, amiable work. Gordon Lish was always kind to me and very encouraging. He settled my nerves and suggested I continue on with writing books: my second novel, also with a title he disdained, Shiny Apalaris.

Gordon took The Red Truck to France for a month and finished the edit. “Dear Excellent Rudy,” he wrote. “Here’s the edited version of what I think now is best titled Cartoon. I will not expand on my remarks on the phone, save to aver, once again, that I think you have a first-rate text here, one that will gain you exceptional notice. The work was, I suspect you must realize, tough to do. But it is behind us now; now the next step is to come to terms with what we have here. I hope you will find yourself persuaded to go with it as it is. But the decision is entirely yours, of course….” The note ended with “Be well and feel good. I have a safe copy here, so call if there is anything you can’t dope out.”

I went into shock.  I sat in my old brick house, on a dirt alley, note and manuscript in hand. I couldn’t understand the book now. The ending completely threw me, practically into contortions and panic. It made no sense to me, rationally, irrationally or on any feeling or metaphorical or allegorical way: in no way whatsoever, to me.  He had taken a line from the middle of the book and stuck it at the end, totally out of any humane context. I fell into a two week long, silent depression.

He called. “What’s the problem?”
“I just can’t live with the book like this, and the title makes it sound silly, almost absurd,” I said. “It makes no sense to me now, all the narrative being cut, it’s just not the book I wrote.”

I must add that Gordon Lish did not write one word of the book, but cut, cut to the bone, and rearrange he did, drastically. There has been recent controversy concerning Gordon’s work with Raymond Carver, of which I know nothing, firsthand. From my experience I would assume Lish did what he did to my work, simply cut and arrange the furniture to his artistic perception.
“Ok, “he said. “Put the book together as you will and let’s then see what we have. If you can make it work for you, we will go with that.” I sensed his quiet disappointment after the work he’d done, but for me it was an absolute necessity.

I rearranged the text, adding some narration for a semblance of a plot and we agreed on the outcome.  Later, The Washington post commented: “…Wilson reveals himself as a prose stylist of genuine gifts; perhaps next time he can create characters and plot to match.”

So it went.  In Aug. ’87  I received some numbered details from Gordon: 1. MS here. 2. Looking good…. 5. Title is to be The Red Truck. 6. We are in good shape and we have a great book and it is time you started being thrilled… 12. Be happy…Feel good, racing, G.”

What a fine, helpful man he was to me, all those years ago. He wrote about the cover art. “Just in — gorgeous stuff. Can you see the Cross? Feel good – G,” and, “The book is simply wonderful. It reads powerfully – I wish I could put my name on it.”

I told him that he may as well, really, as it’s now cut down from four hundred plus pages to one hundred eighty-seven…

Gordon responded, “Rudy, you are the dearest man. I send all Christmas cheer.. G”
As the publication date drew near, Gordon wrote me many notes.  “Rudy, go over these proofs with a fine tooth comb, combing every speck of the page…(Looks gorgeous to me. Oh, boy, what great times ahead!) Cheers, G”

I found the man to be always magnanimous, generous, and strong, also strongly opinionated but nowhere have I ever glimpsed the ‘frightening’ workshop teacher that scares so many people. “Stop,” Lish reportedly told GQ writer Neal Karlen, who took the class and then wrote about it in the late ’80s. “Karlen, I don’t feel like I need to know this to keep on living.” Well that’s not so tough, really.

However, I asked him if there should be a picture of me on the jacket. He asked me for one. “Do you still have long hair?”

“Well, it’s not long, since that picture, but yes…what am I supposed to look like?”
“I think it best if you have no image of you on this book, because after people read it, it may be best to remain anonymous…for your own good.”

Pay-to-Publish companies can have an array of contracts and services.  They all require money from the writer to print the book, but they often do some marketing, retain rights to the book, and take a percentage of proceeds.  They may give the writer a few complimentary copies and sell books to the writer at a discount. In some cases, you pay at the front end to be published and marketed, and you pay again to get copies of your book.

Print-On-Demand companies are pay-to-publish companies who are set up to do very small runs of a book.  This means that the initial total cost can be much lower, but the price per book is much higher. This usually means that the selling price of the book needs to be much higher to cover the printing cost.

My research for this project will yield a self-publisher comparison chart that I’m looking forward to sharing on the site.