Squib 478 [by Alan Ziegler]

For Roger Angell (1921-2022)

Long ago, on the off-chance I might run into the Devil at the Crossroads,

                                                        Robert Johnson's Crossroads

                                                                    Mine


I prepared a modest negotiation list (not worth trading my soul for, but perhaps Mephisto would settle for my soles:

                                                1) Appear on WBAI
                                                2) teach at Columbia University
                                                3) publish in The Village Voice
                                                4) publish in the Paris Review
                                                5) publish in The New Yorker.

By 1986 I had yet to crack the toughest nut, The New Yorker (of course, The New Yorker). I sent off an un-agented story, like buying a lottery ticket for the cost of roundtrip stamps. One afternoon, I slowly opened the mailbox, ever-hoping to find my SASE feather-light, sans story. Once again, not again. Upstairs, I clicked my blinking answering machine.

Download Answering machine 1986

Comments

[mitch sisskind]

Here's another version. In 1978 I sent a story to New Yorker. It was about a businessman who has some sort of seizure in his office and is revived by his secretary. Some time later I got a handwritten note from Roger Angell. I was not familiar with him at the time. The note did not say they were turning down the story. It cut to the chase. It just said that the story was the most outrageous thing he had ever seen.

Looking back, maybe this was some sort of challenge or invitation for me to follow up or keep submitting. But I did neither. Foolishly, I threw the note away without another thought.

Why was this foolish? One thing about Roger Angell, and I say this with (almost) unfiltered admiration: in his work and perhaps in other areas of his life he was absolutely perfectly calibrated to capture the benevolence of the New Yorker readers, and even of New Yorker readers who didn't read the New Yorker. He never put a foot wrong. David Remnick's portrait of Roger Angell in the current issue expresses this very well. So maybe my takeaway from his note should have been -- as in the title of the Hemingway story -- "a way you'll never be."

Instead of ignoring it, I should have learned from it. As our sages teach, "Who is wise? He who learns from everyone."

[David Lehman]

That's great, Alan. And how smart of you to keep the tape. Do you have the story in such a form that we can post it? Mitch, do you have a cop[y of the 1978 story in question? What a wonderful post and comment!

[Alan Ziegler]

Mitch: I wonder what nerve was so struck not only to cause Roger Angell such outrage but also for him to use the words "most outrageous" to an author he didn't know. Must have been one hell of a story.

David: I actually have the manuscript with Angell's edits. I'll dig it up and send it along.