Read Online The View from the Bridge by Nicholas Meyer - Free Book Online

was supposed to have been written in 1939, but let that pass) “it is actually being penned for readers of 1974.” (So far, so good.) “So what we need to do in editing, is present the illusion of a period novel, while keeping in mind the fact of its contemporary readership.”
    I had no problem with any of this until I read Ed’s version of my story. Here I found myself on the horns of a classic dilemma: first-time novelist’s instincts versus those of experienced editor. Whose judgment should I trust—his or my own?
    I was luckier than some writers in similar situations; because my book was itself an imitation of something else, I had a preexisting yardstick by which to measure the success or failure of my effort. Since my editor’s version of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution didn’t read like Arthur Conan Doyle and my original did, it was easy for me to decide to insist on something much closer to my own draft.
    Besides, always let your failures be your own. The world is full of advice; you must pick and choose what is useful or relevant versus what is merely safe and/or familiar. There’s no getting around instinct; pray you have some.
    Ed Barber left Harcourt Brace for another company (there seemed to be an awful lot of this lateral movement in the publishing business), which didn’t publish fiction. Déjà vu. That left me with Julian Muller as my editor, the head of Harcourt. Muller (famous for having published Auntie Mame when everyone had turned it down) told me not to expect too much from Target Practice . It was, after all, another book among thousands competing for the public’s attention.
    I sat listening in his office, puzzled and, I suppose, hurt. I certainly hadn’t expected Target Practice to set the world on fire, but I wasn’t sure I relished hearing about its lack of prospects from its publisher. I may have mumbled something to that effect.
    â€œLook,” Muller went gamely on, “if you want to write a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.” Only the word he used instead of “mighty” was “commercial.”
    Harcourt wasn’t (seemingly) able or interested in helping me to resolve my dilemma with the Doyle crowd. And now I began getting calls from Juris Jurjevics, of all people, the man who had edited The Love Story Story when he was at Avon Books. He was now with E. P. Dutton, and someone had slipped him a copy of my novel.
    I explained that I had a deal with Harcourt. He asked how much they were prepared to pay me. I told him. Jurjevics said he would top the offer by a thousand dollars. I told Tom.
    â€œWait,” said Tom.
    A week later Dutton had upped the offer by another thousand. And so on. Finally, since Harcourt seemed utterly passive in the face of my legal quagmire, I asked Muller to let me out of our deal. He didn’t seem to mind a bit and my Holmes book was now at its third publisher, E. P. Dutton, which energetically pursued the matter of obtaining permission from the Doyle estate to publish. No seven-per-cent solution, I promise you.
    The book came out in August 1974, hard on the heels of Target Practice , which had been released in March. After years of drought (and I mean years), I had suddenly published two novels within six months. What happened next still strikes me as highly improbable. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution quickly appeared on the New York Times bestseller list in the number-ten slot and began inching its way north. Abruptly I was lifted out of obscurity and (comparative) penury. I was sought after for interviews; my name began appearing in print here and there, and the reading public, for reasons of its own, decided my book was one to read. Sherlock Holmes was in vogue. And so was Freud. The late Anatole Broyard, reviewing the book in The New York Times , was kind. He noted that after all the Freud bashing lately, it was a pleasure to see him portrayed as the hero for a change,