The point is simply, said Peter, that the family is a barbarous institution. One is, for the most part, stuck with the luck of a single draw.
Oh, families, said Jim. I know, I know, I know.
He took a healthy swallow from his glass of Diet Coke and set it down.
Look, said Jim. This is fascinating, but it’s way over my head. I don’t really get it all, but I don’t need to get it.
Jim put his plate unhurriedly to one side, rested his forearms on the table and laced his fingers together, with a quiet mastery of the space that — that is, if Jim had been the one who had wanted to present PDFs displaying the binomial distribution, an army of ketchup bottles would not have stood in his way.
You’re a very brilliant guy, said Jim. You’re the genius. You found a way to capture the imagination of a lot of kids who would not normally go for this stuff. You captured the imagination of a lot of adults who wouldn’t normally read books for kids. So if you want to talk about the odds, maybe I’m in a better position to know the kinds of odds you were beating. I’m in a better position to know why this is very exciting to a lot of other people who understand the kind of odds you were beating. What I can say is that a lot of people are very excited by your work; I know a lot of editors who would love to see a new book. So this would be a very good time to send something out, have an auction. Bottom line, if we don’t get a significant six-figure deal it’s time for me to take up knitting, and if we play our cards right we could be talking low seven.
Jim had already explained, by e-mail, that the option on Peter’s second book, held by the lucky publisher of Peter’s first book (advance: £5,000; sales: 500,000), was not an obstacle. The book must be submitted first to the lucky publisher, but if their offer was unsatisfactory Peter (or, rather, Peter’s agent on his behalf) was entitled to submit the book elsewhere.
This was, obviously, an improvement on our barbarous domestic arrangements: a parent does not have an option on a child, and the terms of the relationship do not come up for renegotiation. Peter’s position — and the reason for this ill-starred trip to New York — was that the objection to the lucky publisher was not financial. The objection was that it had done its best to dilute elements of the book likely to appeal to the underserved numerate, and to put off the innumerate who were already, one might have thought, amply provided for, an example being the hideous war of attrition it had waged over inclusion of eiπ.
The fact that Jim could unashamedly admit to finding a perfectly simple explanation of the binomial distribution over his head, that he could unblushingly dismiss it as the province of genius, only went to show how deep-seated innumeracy actually is in our benighted culture. (If an agent, a ‘hot shot’, who notionally represents a client’s financial interests, can be functionally innumerate — !!!) But how could he possibly do battle with ignorance if he himself —
By the time a boy is 10 he has spent 3,652 days under governance of the allocation of a single draw. There’s nothing to be done about it. All the more reason not to enter into contractual relations lightly.
It’s unreasonable, perhaps, to expect someone like Jim to understand the full horror.
Exactly, said Peter. (Meet the man on his own ground.) Exactly. This is the whole beauty of business relations: we leave barbarity behind. Let us suppose I know about Merovingian kings; I wish either to work with someone with comparable knowledge of the Merovingians or, perhaps, to work with someone whose knowledge of the Carolingians supplements my relative ignorance of the period. We see at once that I should be highly unlikely to find a match leaving the matter to chance, but the invisible hand is my friend: I can pay for the information or, aliter visum, the value of the match enables all concerned to maximise profits regardless of whether money changes hands. Let us say no one with relevant knowledge can be found. Perhaps someone happens to know about the Dutch Tulip Bubble, and I discover in myself a hitherto unguessed-at interest in the Dutch Tulip Bubble. I can order my preferences, you know, in a way which is wholly out of the question in a family setting. As it happens, I have written a second book on robots and would like an editor with relevant expertise; if none can be found with expertise relevant to the book in hand, I would happily write a book relevant to such expertise as can be had. I rely on you to brief me so that I can make a rational decision.
Jim said he didn’t work that way. Look, he said, we could waste a lot of time talking about editors. We’re only interested in the ones who are willing to buy the book we have to sell. Once we have a list of serious contenders we can definitely talk about who would be best for the book.
As a child Peter had not been unduly, he wouldn’t have said, troubled by the shortcomings of his parents per se. The thing that had bothered him was the fact that all other adults colluded in placing him in the largely unchecked power of these individuals. All adults, even the apparently decent ones, were in collusion with evil.
He had worked it out when he was, perhaps, 7 and never forgotten. That was why he was able to write for children. He was 35, a bad age.
Peter said, Please.
He tried to think of the sort of thing Americans say.
He said, It would mean a lot to me to work with someone who admired Bertrand Russell.
He said, It would really mean a lot to me.
The statement seemed, if not meaningless, then uselessly imprecise.
(The first book had made all this money. Why could he not use the money to buy what he wanted? Was that not the general point of having money in the first place?)
He said, I’d be happy to switch the percentages round if that would help. You’d be very welcome to take an 85% commission.
This was undoubtedly precise but was perhaps not the sort of thing Americans say. Jim said he was happy with the normal 15% commission.
Peter pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes.
Russell, he said presently.
Russell was born in 1872. His father, Viscount Amberley, was an atheist and Utilitarian; he asked John Stuart Mill to be godfather to the child. Russell’s mother died when he was 2, his father when he was 4. His father’s will appointed two atheists to be guardians to Russell and his brother, and stipulated that the children be raised as agnostics. Russell’s grandmother, the Countess Russell, overturned the will and won guardianship of the children. She raised Russell on strictly religious principles. At the age of 11 he was introduced to geometry by his brother Frank; he said he had not imagined there was anything so beautiful in the world. He said later that only the desire to know more about mathematics restrained him from suicide.
I do understand, Peter said wearily, that we can’t reasonably expect to find an editor of children’s books with mathematical, scientific, or even philosophical training. But Russell, after all, was a great populariser; it’s surely not beyond the realm of probability that a general reader should be familiar with his popular work, work written for a general audience. The thing that matters is not, ultimately, an understanding of number theory, or the structure of the atom, or the semantic tradition, but an unswerving commitment to the pursuit of truth. I should be happy to forgo 70% of the revenue from a book to avoid entrusting it to a person to whom this is perfectly indifferent; one has to be particularly scrupulous in these matters when writing for children. That is the overriding interest which I hope to persuade you to represent. As ours is a business relationship, a financial incentive cannot, it seems to me, be offensive as it would be among mathematicians, scientists or philosophers. It is entirely reasonable for me to determine my own ends and offer financial compensation to you for the inconvenience of promoting them.