FICTION
'Slush'
/ Joshua Cohen
01.09.09
In sum, Mr. Priestly, we’re sorry that we’re forced to be so painfully discriminating but we’re taking on very small fiction right now to be honest very very small and only seem to bend when something unlike anything else on our list comes along while finding that we may be “totally tapped out” on this kind of lit altogether though certainly another agent more interested/less with so much slush in her pile will undoubtedly be more intelligent imaginative more enthusiastic or prove hopefully responsive however to that end we wish you all the best in securing otherwise alternate, et cetera.
Enc. 1 mss. PC/dd
What appears to be the problem with STORIES OF MY PAST AND FUTURE LIVES? For one, the character of Dina is just not believable, and, for that matter, neither is Priestly himself, who is not allowed to develop fully, and whose motives we don’t understand from the very beginning, where nothing’s at stake.
We suggest you turn Priestly into either an eighteen-year-old male, from the beginning (and so, the section about leaving his uncle’s house and that whole entire scene with the dogs ((are they fighting, or are they playing??)) could open the book, as a prologue), or a sixteen-year-old female (and so the loss of virginity instead would be not only illegal but incestuously with “her” legal guardian, her uncle, and not with that forgettable nextdoor neighbor who knew, or said she knew, “her” mother — you with me?).
Another suggestion is that the Dina character should be developed more, and introduced earlier, or later, or not at all, and should be more developed (her meeting of Priestly should be “before the book,” for example; we should “take them for granted” as a couple already, or if not as a couple then at least predestined to be one).
We think you should leave the office you currently temp at in Midtown and get a job in the outer boroughs, Brooklyn, Queens. Why do you need so much exposition up front (Priestly’s father’s dead, mother’s dead, shuttled among relatives, and all this before he’s finally rejected for marriage by “his dreamgirl,” your words, and what about that Broadway fantasy of hers — is that why he follows her to New York, or do you think he has aspirations of his own?)? Why do you need to have a job in the arts industry, Aaron? Do you really think answering phones for some television PR firm will help your prospects at selling your roman-à-mémoire? We think you should stop doing officework altogether and get into the service industry, or worse. Whitewashing the cycs at a photo studio. Taking out the trash at a fried chicken franchise in a neighborhood nowhere near its transition.
Enc. 1 mss. PC/dd
What appears to be the problem with STORIES OF MY PAST AND FUTURE LIVES? For one, the character of Dina is just not believable, and, for that matter, neither is Priestly himself, who is not allowed to develop fully, and whose motives we don’t understand from the very beginning, where nothing’s at stake.
We suggest you turn Priestly into either an eighteen-year-old male, from the beginning (and so, the section about leaving his uncle’s house and that whole entire scene with the dogs ((are they fighting, or are they playing??)) could open the book, as a prologue), or a sixteen-year-old female (and so the loss of virginity instead would be not only illegal but incestuously with “her” legal guardian, her uncle, and not with that forgettable nextdoor neighbor who knew, or said she knew, “her” mother — you with me?).
Another suggestion is that the Dina character should be developed more, and introduced earlier, or later, or not at all, and should be more developed (her meeting of Priestly should be “before the book,” for example; we should “take them for granted” as a couple already, or if not as a couple then at least predestined to be one).
We think you should leave the office you currently temp at in Midtown and get a job in the outer boroughs, Brooklyn, Queens. Why do you need so much exposition up front (Priestly’s father’s dead, mother’s dead, shuttled among relatives, and all this before he’s finally rejected for marriage by “his dreamgirl,” your words, and what about that Broadway fantasy of hers — is that why he follows her to New York, or do you think he has aspirations of his own?)? Why do you need to have a job in the arts industry, Aaron? Do you really think answering phones for some television PR firm will help your prospects at selling your roman-à-mémoire? We think you should stop doing officework altogether and get into the service industry, or worse. Whitewashing the cycs at a photo studio. Taking out the trash at a fried chicken franchise in a neighborhood nowhere near its transition.