AN IMAGINATION MISUSED

I have this one very cynical, very petty, very silly fantasy. It goes like this: What if I published every novel I write under a different name? My age, throughout, will remain constant at, say, twenty-seven: an astounding wunderkind, yes, but not quite an astoundingly annoying one. With each go, my publisher backs the project with extravagant, enviable gusto: there is the enormous advance that has been leaked for publicity purposes; the novel is slated as the lead title for whatever month; pricey advertisements are taken out in major publications; the press release presents me as “an astonishing discovery,” and “an arresting new voice in contemporary American fiction.” The early attention, which is substantial, follows suit, siphoning the press release through a thesaurus, which, even so, results in a recycled roster of hackneyed phrases: I’m introduced to the public as “a stunning find” who writes from “a breathtakingly original perspective,” all the more impressive in someone “so young he’s practically still in utero.” Then come the reviews, which are also substantial in number: 90 percent of them tout me as “a debut writer so exciting it’s literally painful” who has created a book “powered by a precocious brilliance so tumescent you’ll rethink every thought that has ever spiked through your brainstem,” while the other 10 percent toss out the predictably vitriolic stuff that, nonetheless, lends a bit of intrigue and scandal to the whole moment.

And a “moment” it is! For instance, despite the book’s “unabashedly literary material,” it finds a solid perch on national best-seller lists, thus provoking a series of articles asserting that my work “has single-handedly proved that Americans en masse still possess a palette for serious, diverting novels.” It sells many copies. It is translated into many languages, including, for the first time ever, Sanskrit and Esperanto (scholars link it to the Rosetta Stone). I give no interviews. I allow no photographs to be taken (which prompts “investigative exclusives” in women’s magazines revealing that I’m a dashing combination of Colin Farrell and, mysteriously, Denzel Washington; which spawn bitter diatribes in men’s magazines; which spawn think pieces on “image and the written word” in newspapers). And every few years, under a new identity, I publish another book (all the while able to slyly improve my craft!). And, every time, the celebration is equally bloated and sanctimonious.

I am, in short, the Perpetual Debut Novelist.

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Yes, I know it’s asinine. Believe me, I’m in no way proud. I am a young fiction writer who has recently, with the publication of a first novel, entered this “business,” and, somewhere in doing so, this trashy prank has whittled its way into my mind. Which is embarrassing....