Book Launch in Victoria, B.C.Robert Sward
Sipping tea on the "Victoria Clipper," entering Victoria's lush Inner Harbor, I had imagined how I'd introduce the reading. I'd tell the story of how in 1969, touring for the Northwest Poetry Circuit, I arrived in Victoria to give a one-hour poetry reading and ended up staying ten years (1969-1979). I'd tell how the first Canadian poets I met---Susan Musgrave and Sean Virgo---warned of Victoria's fatal beauty, "O lush, seductive city, green, greenest of them all, O Lotus Land," and how, ignoring that warning, I paid the price. I would tell the story of how, inspired by my friend, William Stafford, I founded a publishing company of my own in Canada (Soft Press--"The spirit in man is soft, it can go anywhere") and how, like Tar Baby, every effort to extract myself from that venture---and from Vancouver Island---led to more and more complication. Finally, I planned to read sections from the new novel that were "set" in Victoria-Vancouver, British Columbia, and that drew on some of the happiest and best as well as some of the most horrific moments of my life. What have I got to lose, I figured. I'll set the record straight, bring
things up to date, keep the story brief.
The driver disappeared back onto Blanshard Street and, turning, I approached my mate who, standing between me and the box, seemed to say, "Please. No. It's too awful." Instinctively, I found myself looking around for that yellow scene-of-the-crime
police tape that says, "Warning: Keep Out."
Refusing to budge, she blocked my way. "Come on," I said. "Let's go." "Just promise me you're not going to be upset," she pleaded, "This is
just a little blip in our lives, right?"
"Let's get on with it," I said. "Promise, promise me... it's pretty bad." Hesitating a moment, I resisted the urge to flatten my nose against one of the grungy windows in order to gaze in, prehensile snout flaring, swiveling about, "Where's my audience?" "Mr. P., how many copies have you sold? Any reviews? Notices? Royalties? Anything?" I was beginning to get the picture. If the blockhouse was as empty as the streets, I'd be reading to myself. Flame-beaked gulls barked and shrilled as they swooped above us.
"Listen, Robert, there are four people in there and one of them is your publisher--and one I think is K., your student. That makes an audience of one, maybe two, people for each book. One for K.'s, one for yours." Because they were launching K.'s work and mine on the same evening, the publisher and his wife---Editor-in-Chief---had promised us a gala affair ("Open house..." "Refreshments served..."), one intended to coincide with Pandora's fifteenth year as a literary press. Entering the little box, I blinked as I made out a Macintosh computer (circa 1989), ten or so unoccupied folding chairs, and four veils, gauzy pink and blue, dangling from the gold-painted bars covering the windows. "Our readings never start on time," said a lank-haired individual who shuffled over and put out his hand. "I'm Mr. P., your publisher. This is Jack and this is Martin," he went on, introducing us to the audience, fellow Pandora authors whose contracts, apparently, required them to attend book launches. The two unfortunates wore pained, uncomfortable expressions. As for the publisher, he'd been described by friends as an old hippie. "Mr. P. is okay," said one, a prominent musician and poet who himself had a book coming out with Mr. P. I submitted my novel and Pandora accepted the work in 1995. Months later, following P.'s delay in coming up with a contract, I phoned my friend for reassurance. "Relax," said the musician. "You'll understand when you meet him. This dude's incredible. He's laid back and unorganized. You wouldn't imagine he'd deliver on anything, but then when you least expect it he'll surprise you." "Maybe I should bow out." "Listen, you have ties to the West Coast. And the timing's right. Mr. P.'s looking for good fiction writers. You gain. He gains. It's a match." I wasn't having much luck with the big New York publishers and, seeing some writers I admired in Pandora's catalogue, I made up my mind to stay with Mr. P., who promised (a) to get the book out within a year, (b) to promote and sell it in both Canada and the U.S., and (c) to pay me the equivalent of $1200.00 --albeit in author's copies. "People drift in late." That was the refrain of the evening. "People drift in late. Yep." Moving about the little box, the publisher grinned, peeking out at us through round-rimmed, over-size lenses. "How about some wine?" Carefully, as if in slow motion, he handed us sticky plastic goblets that threatened to collapse in our hands. Sipping warm, yellowy-white wine, waiting as if at any moment a contingent of well-wishers would appear--the Godot-like, never-to-come latecomers--my attention was drawn again to the gauzy veils, dance costumes dangling from the gold-painted bars. "What are those?" "My wife teaches belly dancing," Mr. P. explained. "This is Oasis, her dance studio--and Pandora Books." "That explains it. But who answers the telephone?" I asked. If each blink of the office phone's pulsating red light meant one unanswered call, then forty or fifty people were waiting---we're back to Godot---to have their calls returned. Friends, lost in traffic, calling for directions? Bill collectors? Belly dancers? And, speaking of belly dancers, where was Pandora's Editor-in-Chief? Hadn't she made some commitment to my book? Mr. P. shrugged as I thought back upon the months I'd waited to hear his, and Mrs. P.'s, decision about my novel and then to see the contract. And then... Sipping wine, tilting back in my chair, I saw stenciled on the ceiling---recycled wood from an old packing crate---the words "California Imports." "I take it I'm one of your California imports," I remarked. "You got it. California's exotic. Ehh?" Ten minutes later, two panhandlers stumbled into Pandora with their
hands out. "Hey, man," said one, "you gotta spare dollar?"
Following P.'s introduction ("Umm, this is..."), my former student got up and gave a real reading. I did the same. K. and I finished by shaking hands. The audience of four applauded. Martin and Jack rose and, one groaning "illness" and the other, pleading "other obligations," disappeared into the night. "Workmanlike readings," said my wife. "I like it that you guys delivered. You didn't cop out." Turning out the lights, the publisher complained, "Typically, I print 1,000 copies of a book and sell 150." "What happens to the other 850?" I asked. "I keep them in my basement." "Are we talking fiction or poetry?" "Novels. I do worse with poetry. You know, William Hoffer, the Vancouver bookseller, used to say Canada Council pays publishers to produce books, but forgets to pay people to read them." "Hmm. How do you define 'all-out media blitz?'" I asked, noting
that neither K. nor I were able to find any mention of our reading(s) in
the local papers.
* * *
In the taxi back to our hotel, I brooded over the word "launch." Sward, if you're so keen on launches that this dumb debacle has degraded you, depressed you, crazed you, why not go out in style? Why not launch yourself? Why not swan dive, a la Allen Ginsberg, genitals and manuscripts in hand, from the roof of the Empress Hotel? Hell, what better way to celebrate one's 64th birthday than by flying over the Inner Harbor? Why write, why publish, why launch? Ginsberg is right: We're all cowards and jerks, and the world is already overflowing with more novels and poems than it needs. Admit the truth, there are some great writers out there, people with far more talent and dedication than you'll ever have. I thought of books I wanted to read, books I might have read if I'd simply stayed home. Indeed, I'd spent hours getting ready for the Pandora reading, time my wife and I might have spent at Butchart Gardens, Craigdarroch Castle or the Provincial Museum. She was rightly pissed. "Just so you know," she said, turning to me in the taxi, "I'm not going to any more readings. You got it? No more book launches." "Okay, okay, no problem. But, please, don't tell anyone how few people turned out," I said. "If anyone asks, we'll just say Victoria was good---beautiful---the high point of the book tour." She agreed, but I was aghast. Liar! Not only was I prepared to lie, but here I was asking my wife to lie too, to cover up. The truth is, I honeymooned in Victoria, too, just like Richard Nixon. What will---what won't---people lie for? I'd lie to pretend to be a big-time writer doing a big-time author tour. Not bad reviews, not a dizzying number of rejections for grants, not years of subjecting my family to living on a marginal income, none of it, none of it brought me so low as this non-event and discovering, after 40 years of writing, that I was prepared to lie to protect my writer's pride. To pretend. Time to pack it in. Time to quit. Time, indeed, to get a real job. "Robert, I have a mantra for you," said my mate: "Will work for money." "Hmm, sounds good," I said, grateful she was still talking to me. I happen to love the woman. "I'm on it. I'm gonna start just as soon as we get home." "Will work for money," I vow. And those old vows, it's time to
renew those as well, the four vows I started off with: "Show up.
Pay attention. Tell the truth. Take the consequences."
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Robert Sward