Jascha Heifetz, the greatest violinist of the 20th Century, once granted an audience with an admirer, himself a famous entertainer. The entertainer mentioned he had worked in vaudeville at a young age, prompting Heifetz, who was not known to lack modesty, to say that he’d played violin professionally since age eight.
"And I suppose before that," Groucho Marx replied, "you were just a bum."
This came to mind following a story in the New York Times magazine about Charles Bock, a novelist whose first book, "Beautiful Children," has generated a good amount of publicity. The author of the article, Charles McGrath, noted that Bock is 38, which is "a little old for a first novelist."
Us yet-to-be-published novelists (and some already published) grumbled mightily about this slight, which McGrath probably intended to be a throwaway line. It’s true that most "novelists," meaning those fortunate enough to earn real coin for their literary endeavors, usually publish their first book when they’re 25, or, at most, age 30. The current career path of your typical American novelist seems to follow one of three paths:
- They graduate college, publish a novel to great acclaim, make buttloads of money, get their book optioned, make buttloads of more money, then publish a disappointing second book. They rebound with their third ("a return to form" the critics will opine), and establish themselves as Literary Voices of a Generation. See Foer, Jonathan Safran; Smith, Zadie; Shteyngart, Gary; Mitchell, David.
- They publish one totally awesome, totally amazing, totally righteous book, often before the age of 30, then disappear from public view, either publishing in hiding, semi-seclusion, or insanity. Almost always an intellectual 10 times smarter than their readers. See Pynchon, Thomas; Salinger, J.D.; Powers, RIchard; Wallace, David Foster.
- They graduate college, get an M.F.A. at the Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop or such, then publish a collection of well-received short stories. Because everybody knows short story writers make about as much as a flutist busker in the subway, they eventually write a novel that sells fairly well, gets a good amount of critical acclaim, and end up living the next several years in writer’s colonies and retreats (MacDowell, Yaddo, etc.). They land a job teaching creative writing at a college, and write six to eight books over the next 30 years. See, like, a million of them.
Yours truly is 43 and staring 44 dead in the face with the same cold hatred visited upon such villains as Halliburton, bad beer, and the Ohio State Chunkeyes. The last rejection letter for my novel arrived sometime before Eliot Spitzer’s boner went out of control but after Bush was reelected, which is another way of saying that it was long enough ago that I’ve lost track. The last time I spoke to my agent, he cut me off from our conversation from a more urgent matter, which involved deciding if his martini should be shaken or stirred.
This is another way of saying that I don’t expect my novel to get published in the near future, the medium future, far future, or in the dreams of my future. Of this writing, I’m 5 years older than Mr. Bock, and eight older than Mr. Shteyngart and double-digits behind Ms. Smith. I wonder if my age does indeed disqualify me from publication, at least in the minds of some agents and publishers. Though I have addressed this in the past — to get published, one should be young, hot, and have a large something or another — I sometimes worry that my age works against me.
No, no, no, I can hear the Publishing Establishment huffing and puffing, don’t be so paranoid. We don’t care about such things — it’s all about the work. It’s all about the art. Which explains celebrity authors, I realize.
Your tax dollars at work
I imagine from a publisher’s standpoint, it’s more exciting to promote a bright young star than a middle-aged, "who-the-fuck-is-this-joker?" writer. I really can’t call it "ageism" that a younger writer may have an easier time getting published than an older one, but I can’t call it very much fun, either, living with the sinking feeling that one’s window has passed.
Pass the cyanide, please. No, can’t do that, now I got Baby. I will, however, take you up on your offer for a free night with Executive Escorts’ finest adult entertainers. A man has to have a mid-life crisis, somehow.
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Didn’t know they gave a sweetdamn about a writer’s age, just the MS’s age.
This post made me laugh. Laughing makes me throw my lower back(which should give you some indication of my age).
Wah, wah, wah! Quit whining! Wait till you’re as old as me. Then everyone will be all googlie eyed and fawning over you because someone your age was able to write such a great story – like it was some kind of miracle!
I’d respond to this post, but I’ve just realized I’m OLDER than you are and so must go take a little nap and then some vitamins and then creak over to my chair and try to remember how you turn the damned computer thing on again so I can query some more agents in the futile pursuit of finding someone who actually thinks anything I have to say is worth reading by the young ‘uns who read books. Oh, wait a minute! The young don’t read books. The only people who read books are Old People. That might be a ray of hope, except I can’t really see it because of these cataract things.
Foer, Jonathan Saffron; Smith, Zadie; Shteyngart, Gary; Mitchell, David.
Are these the contestants on American Idol? Now that’s real ageism. You can’t even sing on that show if you were born before 1985!
bernita: they don’t really give a sweetdamn about the writer’s age, but they do give somewhat of a damn. all in the marketing. but you are correct: the age of the manuscript trumps all.
myfanwy: i wasn’t trying to be funny. well, not consciously trying to be funny. now ice that back. or should you apply heat?
anti-wife: if you take away my whining, you might as well just kill me. whining is annoying, however, and i need to set a good example for baby, who whines a bit as well.
bloglily: soup, would you like some soup?
yeah, why bother publishing a hot young writer when nobody under the age of 40 is reading? just why are we doing this fiction-writing thing, anyway?
neil: america, you told us who you wanted up on this stage. and it isn’t tony bennett.
Well, there is a whole European history of great literary and artistic figures barely making a pittance if anything off their writing while alive, even mocked, and then becoming recognized posthumously as geniuses. Perhaps your children or grandchildren will benefit from a windfall. I always try to comfort myself with that thought.
I got a couple months to 30. Guess i better start beating the shit outta the muse.
Yeah, well, there’s lots of other ways to do it. Penelope Fitzgerald, first published at 58, first novel two years later, first booker nominee next year, and winning the Booker the next.
Harriet Doerr, first novel at 75.
Charles Bukowski, first novel at 49.
Raymond Chandler, first novel at 51.
Ruth Stone, first book of poems at 45, nothing for eleven years, another book, then the National Book award at 87.
Millard Kauffman, first novel at 90!
(Yes, I collect these things)
[...] Bookfraud was down on himself last week because so many novelists publish their first novel before they are 30: Jonathan Safran Foer, Zadie Smith and Gary Shteyngart. And he felt that the deadline had passed. [...]
gloria: i really don’t care how much money i make from my work, just as long as it gets published and, like, 5 people read it. then again, wasn’t most of kafka’s work unpublished in his lifetime? but he was kind of a nut.
bakannal: you better get on it, or else you’ll end up a bitter old man like me.
rellis: so true, so true. when in despair, one tends not to look at things with an eye towards history. it’s kind of inspiring, reading about such writers (raymond chandler was 51 when first published! i had no idea). thanks for slapping me, i could use more of it.
Laura Ingalls Wilder published her first book at 65.
Charles McGrath can suck my 38-year-old wiener.
You forgot Donna Tartt in your list. Brilliant debut, a decade for the sucky second, not sure I’ll care 10 years later when the third comes out.
Two things to do about age
1. Revel in the mystery and take a page out of the femme fatale guide. Only silly yewts can get away with bragging rights on a bio. After 35 you really shouldn’t have to say.
2. Do what all writers do and get yourself a jacket photo 15 years younger than your biological age. I attended a reading this weekend and the artist in question had a huge Chairman Mao foto of himself projected on the wall, even though it could have been a before/after Rogaine ad. His interviewer quipped about how he had more hair back then, but writer wasn’t even fazed. That kind of confidence requires more than a couple of decades, me thinks.