Cut ‘than himself’. Redundant.
Cut ‘talented’. Please.
Mother’s boy GH marries at twenty-three accomplished lawyer, thirty-eight. Her money funds his ambition to run independent publishing house.
She flattered me, what a bright little boy you are, what a clever young man, what a promising future. She made me dependent on her. She stopped me growing up. I never grew up. I need to grow up.
But I told you I was too old for you. I said it a million times. Only you were so stubborn I began to believe you loved me.
L.
Life, life, not my life.
Summarize and dismiss. Go to this evening’s meditation with a free mind, a clear mind, an empty mind. Everything described and dismissed.
So.
Mother’s boy GH marries accomplished lawyer whose wealth funds his independent publishing venture.
Cut ‘independent’.
Why publishing? Why would anyone be ambitious to be a publisher, of all things?
Unable to write yourself, you hide behind other people’s books.
L.
Behind the arrogance of a cultural project.
L.
Three years later, the marriage is already on the rocks when a daughter is born.
I notice all the novels you are publishing are about adultery.
L.
Actually, darling, the majority are murder stories.
Combine the formulas, sweetheart. Uxoricide. Don’t let me get in your way.
L.
Four years later his marriage is already on the rocks when a daughter is born, more or less simultaneous with the beginning of his love affair with T, eight years his junior.
Cut ‘more or less’.
Cut ‘love’.
Reinstate ‘love’.
Too much chronology?
Because wife becomes increasingly hostile and unstable he feels more and more attached to T. To leave, however, would be to expose his daughter to a woman who has left her job and is drinking heavily.
Break for word count.
I always enjoyed writing blurbs.
It’s your blurbs sink the books, sweetheart.
L.
You say too clearly what kind of rubbish they are.
L.
Querulous mother’s boy, GH, marries accomplished lawyer who generously invests in his publishing venture. Just when his passion for his secretary seems bound to sink the marriage a daughter is born, giving GH the excuse for staying with his surrogate mother/wife who never recovers from postnatal …
48 words.
52 to go.
Not a syllable over a hundred.
I cuddled myself in the sheets. How intelligent this man makes me feel. How awake. As if any of this mattered. The bloke is awesomely attached to being who he is. I could see that. To his own shit. I hadn’t hung around failing rock musicians for years without seeing how they all adored the drama of their frustrations. Jonathan’s studio was full of paintings he hadn’t managed to sell. ‘Famous in a manner of speaking,’ he used to say. ‘Famous at the Ealing Rotary.’ Most of them were old girlfriends. He didn’t hide them from me. But from his ex-wife, yes. They weren’t legally divorced, he said. As if there was some other kind. ‘Just that we don’t live together.’ I didn’t mind because I was a million miles prettier than any of them. The wife in particular. She was boss-eyed. ‘I don’t need an exclusive deal,’ I told him. I felt pretty confident. After our afternoons at the studio, I’d text JUST TOPPED UP THE CHERRY WITH CARL IN THE SHOWER. It wasn’t true. I LOVE YOU FOR ADMITTING THAT, he texted. I thought: I’ll get a couple of good songs out of this fling.
‘To be like me, Elisabeth, you must first take refuge in the Triple Gem. But really take refuge. You must first keep the Five Precepts. But really keep them. For a long time.’
Is that what Mi Nu will say?
Read to the end of his life, then get out of here. Quick.
Feeling he would fail in his duty to his daughter if he leaves home, GH abandons love and eventually persuades T to marry her old boyfriend.
How could I do something so stupid?
Years later, the folly, the beauty of his daughter’s reckless, sacrificial love for a man who shares her mother’s drink problem opens GH’s eyes to the squalid compromises he has always sunk to. In a blaze of romance …
What?
Blurb talk.
At which point the bank pulls the plug on …
Cut ‘eventually’.
Cut ‘old’.
Cut ‘reckless’.
His wife seems to live only through him. By now he is her only contact with the world. She punishes him for that. He acquiesces. Hating her, he can’t deal the death blow. She is so fragile. This remarkable psychological thriller puts one man with his back to the wall of a tremendous dilemma that will ultimately …
Way over a hundred.
Cut ‘remarkable’.
And ‘tremendous’.
And ‘ultimately’.
‘Ultimately’ what?
The gong sounded. The gong. They’ll be coming out. My eye rushed over the page, and the next, and the next. There must have been a dozen completely different versions.
Adventurous crime publisher seeks to save his marriage by showing his wife how much he cares about their daughter who is dangerously besotted with a middle-aged manic depressive. Meantime his beloved mistress is concerned that the child she is carrying
There were footsteps. I jumped out of the bed and moved the curtain. The blokes were streaming out of the Metta Hall. Ten minutes’ break before the evening video discourse. People would take a pee, stretch legs, grab a glass of water. Down the corridor, the outside door banged. Men kicking off their shoes, padding along the wooden floor to their rooms.
Beth paralysed. Too late to make it to the kitchen. Could I slip off in the other direction, towards the Dormitory A loos, hide in a cubicle? Go now!
I didn’t move.
Breathe. Control your breathing. Control this excitement. Focus on the physical turbulence and the mental will subside, Dasgupta says.
I breathed. I felt the breath on my lips, my chest rose and fell.
Footsteps along the corridor. Hurrying. Doors opened and closed. There are no locks at the Dasgupta. Someone sat on a bed in the next room, sighed. Someone was opening a window.
Men all around.
They only have a few minutes between sessions. Most will have gone for a cup of tea in the dining hall. Or for a stroll round the field.
I sat on the bed, picked up his pen from the floor. He uses a fountain pen.
‘You love your pain too much.’
The nib scratched.
Footsteps slowed at the door, then started off again. Others coming back from the bathroom end. Someone dropped something.
I sat waiting.
GH.