His Kingdom For a Chair? My Date With Jonathan Galassi

Calamari Press Edges Ahead of FSG for "Row, Dole" rights as NYC readings Pepys Blows Galassi Pitch

Date: March 16, 2012
Authors: Cuny Writers’ Institute students -- Caroline Seklir, Destanie McAllister, Thomas Lin, Sultana Banulescu
Venue: KGB
Free Drinks: Depends On Lou’s mood
Q & A: no
Book signed: NA
UE check number: benefits ended

Andre Aciman holds the Chair of CUNY’s doctoral program in comp lit. Irish poet Paul Muldoon holds the Chair of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton.

I held the chair of the second table to the left of the podium in the hope that FSG president Jonathan Galassi would sit in it. He did. Although a small press, Calamari has decent distribution.

I got to the reading early and took a seat with my back to the wall so I could see the bar’s entrance.

I threw my sweatshirt over the opposite seat. I was saving it for Jonathan Galassi so I could pitch him. Amazingly, it worked, at least insofar as he showed up, took the seat and I did pitch him.

Possibly, I sounded like a jerk and the coincidence of my seating coup was wasted. Still, I prefer to look at it as the struggle to get your work in front of an audience is like dating. It only has to work once. In the acknowledgments section of his book, Brando Skyhorse, this blog’s spiritual advisor, refers to the “yes” he got from his agent Susan Golomb. I don’t think Brando cares about all the “nos” that preceded it.

So here’s how I pitched the most powerful man in publishing whose name isn’t Newhouse or Murdoch, and probably, if you quality it by saying literary publishing, Galassi is the equal of the two owners.

I’ll let my reader, if such creature exists, be the judge of whether I made an ass of myself again. The fact that Galassi didn’t say, or have a chance to say, as much as complete sentence to me might be an indication that I did blow it.

In my defense, what’s more New York than controlling a bit of valuable real estate and using it to say, “let me join the club.” Anyway, here’s a rough, but accurate transcript of my date with Galassi. If I had any readers and if I could use FB or Twitter, everybody could vote on whether I screwed up my moment of access, if that’s what it was. But before I master social media I have to learn how to download James Marcus’ brilliant Old Jewish Man Shouting Mix starring Philip Roth’s MP3 as a ring tone. Only then will I worry about hashtags.

I knew there was a 50-50 chance that Galassi would show because some semesters, but not all, he teaches at the Writers’ Institute. Andre Aciman is the director of the institute. For both Andre and me, holding a chair isn’t our only gig.

I threw my sweatshirt over the seat opposite me. If anybody had asked if the seat was available, I would have said yes, but between the shirt hanging on it and my decrepit visage, nobody wanted it even as the room grew crowded.

The reading started and most of the seats, both at the bar and the tables were taken. Late arriviers were crowded at the room’s entry and the far end of the bar.

I saw Galassi in the doorway. He was looking for a seat. He started to take a few steps into the room while the first reader, Caroline Seklir, performed.

Seklir’s story took a while to get going, but it ended with a beautiful image of the wife and the mistress-au pair folding a sheet upon which the mistress and the husband had recently had sex.

I think what singer Patti Smith said about rock concerts, that the only thing that matters, like in prizefight, is that it end with a knockout, can be applied to stories. Seklir did this.

As Galassi started to look for a seat, there was an older lady doing the same thing and like a gentleman he signaled for her to go ahead. She found a seat against the wall to her right. I was now in Galassi’s sight line and he hadn’t found an empty seat.

I pointed to the seat across from me, moved my sweatshirt and indicated he should take it. He did. When Seklir finished, I introduced myself to him and said,” There’s a tradition in this bar that if somebody saves you a seat, you have to publish their book.”

Galassi nodded and smiled. I went on.

“It’s probably not enforceable in the courts. It’s more of a gentleman’s agreement, but I saw how polite you were in letting the older lady go ahead , so I think a gentleman’s agreement will work.”

Again, I got a nod and a smile.

During the intermission, Galassi got up to buy a drink and stopped to chat with the students and faculty members present.

After the third reader ended, I said to him, “My book, “In the Front Row, On the Dole” is about a financial reporter, me, who gets fired in the ‘08 recession and assigns himself a new beat, going to readings. Nobody has told the story of the older workers who lost their assets and their jobs. Now, I’m working as security guard.

“In the Front Row, On The Dole,” is a story of a boomer following his bliss, yes, but I’m also tiptoeing on a thin rope across the precipice of financial ruin. Nobody wants to hire a geezer trade press hack and if I tumble off the tightrope, my family will take the plunge with me.”

Again, Galassi nodded and then the fourth reader started. The FSG president might have been worried I was going to try to borrow money from him. As the last reader was getting going, Galassi got up, said goodbye to a few people and left. He didn’t say anything to me.

Nobody else took the seat. When the reading ended, I went to the bar and told Lou about what had happened. On the plus side, I’d spoken my piece. On the other hand, I’m not signed up with FSG and my seatmate didn’t respond even with a platitude. Maybe what I did violates some social norm that I don’t know about.

The first time I covered a tennis match I knew much more about tennis than about journalism. When a player hit a good shot, I was the only one to clap in the press box. You’re not supposed to. The other sportswriters looked at me like I’d farted. I hope pitching to Galassi like I did wasn’t an equivalent faux pas.

Then too, my friend Chiara Barzini, the Italian author and movie star, publishes with Calamari and I’d be honored to be at the same house as her.
(end Writers Institute: part one)