The "Gift"

A Behind the Scenes post on the power of obligation, guilt, and taking on a new literary agent

The ongoing story about the publication of my first book, Blackbird, and the chessboard game with literary agents when a book becomes “hot”

To make what was now officially titled Blackbird, A Childhood Lost and Found, more seductive during the “building of buzz” phase, Pocket created an advanced version in paperback. This was essentially a mock-up, without the final edits, and used for promotional purposes only.

One of the first “promotional purposes” was to send this advance copy to the three agents on our list.

I hadn’t yet caught my breath about the fact that 1) I’d have to figure out a polite way to tell Rita to step aside, and 2) I needed to meet the three agents and make a decision.

In the midst of this, the cover design went through. While I could comment on it, and my opinion was taken “under advisement” according to the terms of my literary contract, I had very little to say but that turned out to be okay. I liked what Pocket had come up with which was elegant, simple, and clean. And the photo was perfect, a little girl circle turning circles…barefooted and with giant shadows looming in the background. That seemed about right.

With the advance copies going out to these literary agents, something about this process was becoming…beyond…as in, beyond understanding and beyond comprehension. Evidence of this arrived a few days later when I learned that one of the three agents had sold Blackbird in several countries.

“Looks like you’ve got your agent,” Kim said on the phone after telling me that Pocket now had contracts with the UK, Germany, France, and Holland.

“But wait…? How? I mean…what??” I said, a bumbling idiot. “How does a literary agent I’ve never met sell a book she doesn’t represent?”

“She read in a night, said it had to get out there, and that was that. She says to consider the international deals ‘a gift.’”

“That’s one hell of a gift!”

This series of sales would net more money than I had earned in a decade.

“You might want to get on the phone with her,” Kim said, giving me the woman’s direct number but after that call, I could only lie down on the dining room's hardwood floor and stare up at the ceiling.

“Mama,” Spencer said, jumping on me with delight. I was now on his level, and it was time to play. While he stacked blocks on my inert form and told me to “hold still” so they didn’t topple over, I reckoned with the situation.

An agent wasn’t like a check-out clerk—someone you saw once or twice. An agent was like a husband—a lifetime partner.

I had hoped to speak to each of the three, to get a sense of their literary track record and representation philosophy, to establish a careful and thoughtful connection, and to ensure we could build the necessary trust for a long-term relationship. But now, without so much as shaking hands, I was partnered—at least energetically—with an ambitious stranger.

While Spencer built skyscrapers of colorful wooden blocks on my chest, stomach, and legs, I wanted to stop this crazy process and remind myself of what I needed, which was to take my time. But, there was also a pressing, weighted sense of obligation. Kim had said, “Looks like you’ve got an agent,” which meant the right and proper thing was to sign with this woman. Now.

Let’s call this one The Adoptive-Mother-Agent, or A-Ma for reasons that will be clear soon enough.

A-Ma had done well for herself over the years, representing a set of the most iconic and important writers of our time; The New York Times Bestsellers, the Pulitzer Prize Winners, the crème de la crème, as Jean Brodie called her “girls” in The Prime of Ms. Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks. A-Ma was the best; A force of nature, a woman to be reckoned with, and a dynamo of energy, confidence, and focus.

A-Ma was also the first agent I had queried early in the process as she represented a crème de la crème memoir writer I admired greatly.

Soon after that initial submission, A-Ma wrote a to-the-point letter which she, or an assistant, attached to my rejected manuscript pages. “Memoir is dead,” it read and A-Ma referred to her mega-memoir client, saying the writer had effectively saturated the market and thus killed the genre.

I carried this letter with me to New York, tucked in my bag, on yet another trip east. I hadn’t yet signed with A-Ma, and wouldn’t until we met in person, but who was I kidding? Based on the excessive amount of pressure to sign coming externally from Pocket Books and internally from guilt, it was only a matter of time.

Walking into A-Ma’s office for our first face-to-face meeting, I shook hands with a fit looking woman who wore a nicely cut powder blue suit and either played tennis or swam hundreds of laps regularly (or both). She was trim, compact, strong.

“Nice to finally meet,” she said, waving me to sit.

Had it been in a chair next to her desk? Or had there been a sofa-arm chair combination? I can’t remember because A-Ma was one of those people shimmering with confidence and magnetism. Still, I somehow managed to dig out that original letter of rejection.

“Do you remember this?” I asked, passing it to her. “You wrote memoir was dead?”

A-Ma took the letter, glanced over it briefly and then shrugged one sleek shoulder as if couldn’t be less important. “Things change,” she said.

“But do you remember my submission?” I asked.

A-Ma tossed the letter aside. “No. Not really. I get so many,” she said.

On the desk now, that letter was nothing more than a slip of linen paper though it had felt like an ax chopping down my hopes a few months prior.

How does a book that was unworthy before, that was part of a dead genre (killed by her world-famous client), suddenly become worthy of attention and, more, of selling internationally?

The short answer was Kim and all of her hard work on my behalf, as well as the devotion of the other tireless workers at PocketBooks. Internal buzz and the creation of the advance promo copy had elevated my book to be worthy of A-Ma’s time and attention. Before it had been just another book from a hopeful-wanna-be. Now, it was practically guaranteed to be a success. Bottom line: It was good business to take it, and me, on.

I reached for the rejection letter, wanting to keep it in the way some people collect matchbooks from favorite restaurants, shells from the beach, or stamps.

“So, tell me this,” A-Ma said. “You loved your adoptive mother, yes?” She sat perched in a chair across from me, her strong legs crossed at the knee.

I dropped my hand. “I’m sorry?”

A-Ma told me she was an adoptive mother and my book gave her a measure of resolution around this question of irrefutable love between an orphan and an adoptive mother.

That had not been what Blackbird was about. It was the opposite. The book, for those with eyes to see, was about the thing I still struggled with as I sat there; overwhelming guilt, obligation, and being duty-bound to those who hold our lives in their hands. I covered this issue in another post, so I won’t go back and do it again, but it was the first time that I saw, quite clearly, that a reader will take what they need from a book—true or not—and turn it into fuel for their own story.

Fellow Flight School writers: Beware! This misinterpretation of your work and your intent happens. All. The. Time.

Memoir creates a kind of spell around the reader that invites them to see themselves. What they see, and then take away from the writing, often has nothing to do with you, or what you wrote. Memoir is, at the end of the day, not about the writer. There’s a term for this, it’s called “projection.” More about this in a future post, but for now, I was getting a startling education about what I had created and the ways of the world.

You might say it was a worst-nightmare-education.

I had no idea of A-Ma’s relationship with her adoptive child or how it was going for them, but that my book somehow brought her a message powerful enough that she would turn around and pitch Blackbird to everyone she knew, passionately and convincingly, well…that’s some intense mo-jo!

Recovering myself, I reached again for the original rejection letter and looked at it once more: Memoir is dead, it read.

A telephone call was made to Rita; an agreement worked out that the two women would share a percentage of the royalties, a contract to that effect drawn up, and I was now officially represented by an adoptive mother with such a commanding presence, I remained silent throughout most of our relationship. When in person, or on the phone with her, I could only take notes as fast as possible while being instructed on what was going to happen next; Luncheon meetings with magazine publishers, photo shoots, articles I would write, international appearances and soon, a book deal for the sequel to Blackbird.

Later, when the dust settled and all of us had moved on, I would have a few email interactions with A-Ma and she would remind me of her tireless efforts on my behalf and to continue to give thanks to her, and to Rita, for all they did for me and to give those thanks in writing in any future editions of Blackbird.

I found her instructions chilling. Thanks, the adoptive parent demands of the adoptive child. Be grateful we took you in. Don’t you know how lucky you are?

And the cycle continues. Around. And around.

Lucky? Yes. At the time, I felt quite lucky. I was on my way to a success beyond imagining. And even writing about this now makes me feel as if am being petty and unappreciative. Am I? I’m not sure. Perhaps, but then again, I don’t believe so because when working with A-Ma, I tried as hard as I could, and never, not once, spoke back to her, questioned her, or told her of her impact on me…not until I finally let her go as my agent to her shock and amazement because no one “quit” A-Ma. She quit them, but I did quit her eventually. I had to because working with her had trapped me in a tiresome situation perpetuated by my own ignorance and willing participation.

“It must be remembered that the oppressed and the oppressor are bound together within the same society; they accept the same criteria, they share the same beliefs, they both alike depend on the same reality.”

James Balwin, Everybody’s Protest Novel,

In signing with A-Ma and staying as long as I did, I was doing this binding, accepting, sharing, and depending that I had been taught in infancy and childhood. I suppose it’s what I had to do for the book to rise to the top but all these years later, I must admit that my choices were bad for the heart, and for the soul. I didn’t need an agent. I needed therapy! But all that would come soon enough…

(Go directly to the next post on the Blackbird journey now).

Thank you for being with me on this journey, and I hope you and your family have a lovely “end of month” holiday together. May you be graced with good health and peace.

And thank you for being a subscriber.

~ Jennifer, 🍎