I do not remember writing this. But some kind soul sent it to me to remind me what an idiot I am. But some of it does hit home. It was published in the New York Times 2009. Shame on me.

Back in the States, under my desk, packed in boxes, there is novel after novel after novel after novel. Book clubs will never read any of it. City-wide book reads will never read any of it. Individual readers will never read one word of any of it. As a writer, you are not supposed to say these things. Failure is the inherently unspeakable. But I speak it as a language. I am not afraid. I HAVE shown you that books do not matter. What matters in the world of the book is WHO YOU ARE. I HAVE also shown you that what matters is WHO YOU ARE NOT. The REAL book club is publishing. There are club myths out there that the New York Times Book Review and publishing as a business cling to relentlessly. They are LIES. 1.) Lists matter. 2.) Numbers matter. 3. Thusly people reading in aggregate must matter. These are the real lies that keep this ship afloat. Every last one of them goes to the assumption that writing matters. Writing is a sacred cow. The act of writing is patently absurd. It’s not a conflict between new media and old media. That argument is over. It’s not a conflict between the failure of the reader to read or to buy books and a business that offers the reader fundamentally garbage. That argument is a dead horse and the whip to beat it with. It’s not even a conflict of class. The educated aristocrats — we make what “they” should read — versus the unwashed that don’t read anyway whether they’re literate or not. Take a look at any city-wide read. It’s a marketing gimmick. That is all it is. It also fails. Out of a city of more than a million people, maybe twelve are reading your book. If writers can’t bring themselves to say “I failed,” how is the business that employs the publicists and shreds the returned books going to say it. Writers fail. Lives fail. Publishers fail. Editors fail. Books fail. Literacy fails. Our failure is far more meaningful than numbers and book clubs. Culture fails. And falls. There’s where your numbers matter. I HAVE shown you books don’t matter. I have won meaningless literary award after meaningless award after meaningless award after meaningless award. For books that were ADORED even by THIS publication. Until you realized I wasn’t WHO I was supposed to be. Then, I was hated. I am still hated. I had nothing whatsoever to lose. I would (if I could) do it again. Book clubs read my books and book clubs were outraged. Suddenly, the books were horrible monsters but they were the SAME books. Book clubs, the club house of publishing, and books themselves do not matter anymore than the book manuscripts that sit in boxes under my desk. Book lovers insist books matter.

What these people are really saying is WE matter. The club of WE must have meaning. Or what is it all for. No. You. Don’t. Matter. Because fundamentally you are indifferent. Back in the States, under my desk, packed in boxes, there is novel after novel after novel after novel. Book clubs will never read any of it. City-wide book reads will never read any of it. Individual readers will never read one word of any of it. As a writer, you are not supposed to say these things. Failure is the inherently unspeakable. But I speak it as a language. I am not afraid. I HAVE shown you that books do not matter. What matters in the world of the book is WHO YOU ARE. I HAVE also shown you that what matters is WHO YOU ARE NOT. The REAL book club is publishing. There are club myths out there that the New York Times Book Review and publishing as a business cling to relentlessly. They are LIES. 1.) Lists matter. 2.) Numbers matter. 3. Thusly people reading in aggregate must matter. These are the real lies that keep this ship afloat. Every last one of them goes to the assumption that writing matters. Writing is a sacred cow. The act of writing is patently absurd. It’s not a conflict between new media and old media. That argument is over. It’s not a conflict between the failure of the reader to read or to buy books and a business that offers the reader fundamentally garbage. That argument is a dead horse and the whip to beat it with. It’s not even a conflict of class. The educated aristocrats — we make what “they” should read — versus the unwashed that don’t read anyway whether they’re literate or not. Take a look at any city-wide read. It’s a marketing gimmick. That is all it is. It also fails. Out of a city of more than a million people, maybe twelve are reading your book. If writers can’t bring themselves to say “I failed,” how is the business that employs the publicists and shreds the returned books going to say it. Writers fail. Lives fail. Publishers fail. Editors fail. Books fail. Literacy fails. Our failure is far more meaningful than numbers and book clubs. Culture fails. And falls. There’s where your numbers matter. I HAVE shown you books don’t matter. I have won meaningless literary award after meaningless award after meaningless award after meaningless award. For books that were ADORED even by THIS publication. Until you realized I wasn’t WHO I was supposed to be. Then, I was hated. I am still hated. I had nothing whatsoever to lose. I would (if I could) do it again. Book clubs read my books and book clubs were outraged.

Suddenly, the books were horrible monsters but they were the SAME books. Book clubs, the club house of publishing, and books themselves do not matter anymore than the book manuscripts that sit in boxes under my desk. Book lovers insist books matter. What these people are really saying is WE matter. The club of WE must have meaning. Or what is it all for. No. You. Don’t. Matter.Because fundamentally you are indifferent. The next time I come back to the States, I’m burning those manuscripts. I know writers say that. I don’t know if they actually do it. But I will do it. Because in reality that is who I am. Those books aren’t worth the gasoline that will set them on fire. The stories they tell are the stories of human beings. Real people whether book clubs and city-wide reads or contrived readers in aggregate or tribes of consumers who read what they’re told to read read together or individually or not. We have turned the book not into the difficulty of the idea as an abstraction that we intellectually and emotionally explore whether the book is a good read or not but into a commodity where what matters are the numbers. From one end of the process — the writer and his useless manuscripts — to the other — the book confronts the shredder. Books do not matter. Writers do not matter. Publishers do not matter. Book clubs do not matter. Publicists have never mattered. Because people and their stories don’t matter. WE don’t matter. Sure, Barrus is being overly-dramatic. But what’s really overly-dramatic is the fire and the ashes that the fire leaves as dust. I would suggest to you that it’s not just the book that becomes the dust. No. That is us. It will be what we have built. Supposedly a culture. It will go the way of all human stories. I HAVE shown you that. I have shown you that it’s not about how many people read your books but what’s inside your book that counts. I have gone out of my way as a writer to do that. I didn’t just write it as a story. I walked out on those stages and i SHOWED you that what matters is not what you write but who you are and who you are not. But it’s not a story anyone in publishing wants to hear.

They shudder when you suggest that their rituals and their numbers don’t count. Book clubs and city-wide reads and literary awards and the kind of curiosity that wonders about places and conflicts you have not seen and do not fathom should have books ringing with vibrant noise from one end of the culture to the other. But no. You are still obsessed with who people are. And with numbers. Our preoccupation with the kind of external identity the group (or club or tribe) lends us as that identity relates to numbers has only produced a strange silence and the sound of shredded and burning books. The next time I come back to the States, I’m burning those manuscripts. I know writers say that. I don’t know if they actually do it. But I will do it. Because in reality that is who I am. Those books aren’t worth the gasoline that will set them on fire. The stories they tell are the stories of human beings. Real people whether book clubs and city-wide reads or contrived readers in aggregate or tribes of consumers who read what they’re told to read read together or individually or not. We have turned the book not into the difficulty of the idea as an abstraction that we intellectually and emotionally explore whether the book is a good read or not but into a commodity where what matters are the numbers. From one end of the process — the writer and his useless manuscripts — to the other — the book confronts the shredder. Books do not matter. Writers do not matter. Publishers do not matter. Book clubs do not matter. Publicists have never mattered.

Because people and their stories don’t matter. WE don’t matter. Sure, Barrus is being overly-dramatic. But what’s really overly-dramatic is the fire and the ashes that the fire leaves as dust. I would suggest to you that it’s not just the book that becomes the dust. No. That is us. It will be what we have built. Supposedly a culture. It will go the way of all human stories. I HAVE shown you that. I have shown you that it’s not about how many people read your books but what’s inside your book that counts. I have gone out of my way as a writer to do that. I didn’t just write it as a story. I walked out on those stages and i SHOWED you that what matters is not what you write but who you are and who you are not. But it’s not a story anyone in publishing wants to hear. They shudder when you suggest that their rituals and their numbers don’t count. Book clubs and city-wide reads and literary awards and the kind of curiosity that wonders about places and conflicts you have not seen and do not fathom should have books ringing with vibrant noise from one end of the culture to the other. But no. You are still obsessed with who people are. And with numbers. Our preoccupation with the kind of external identity the group (or club or tribe) lends us as that identity relates to numbers has only produced a strange silence and the sound of shredded and burning books.