The plant - By Stephen King Page 0,45
just better have a damn clue. Who do you know at the better hardcover houses? And who do you trust? If we lose the paperback rights to this in the course of getting Saltworthy a hardcover publisher, I'll kill myself. I
3:45 A. M.: Hello, you have reached Roger Wade at Zenith House. I can't take your call right now. If this is about billing or accounting, you need to call Andrew Lang at Apex Corporation of America. The number is 212-555-9191. Ask for the Publishing Division. If you want to leave a message for me, wait for the beep. Thanks.
Motormouth John, even on the goddam answering machine, right, Roger? I can't even remember what I was talking about. I'm just giddy. I'm going to bed. I don't know if I can get to sleep or not. If I can't, maybe I'll come in to work, anyway. Probably in my fucking pajamas! [Laughter] If not, I'll do a Manuscript Report first thing on Friday, okay? Please don't let us fuck this up, Roger. Please. Okay, I'm going to bed.
3:48 A. M.: Hello, you have reached Roger Wade at Zenith House. I can't take your call right now. If this is about billing or accounting, you need to call Andrew Lang at Apex Corporation of America. The number is 212-555-9191. Ask for the Publishing Division. If you want to leave a message for me, wait for the beep. Thanks.
Jesus, Roger. Wait til you read this fucker. Just you wait.
3:50 A. M. Hello, you have reached Roger Wade at Zenith House. I can't take your call right now. If this is about billing or accounting, you need to call Andrew Lang at Apex Corporation of America. The number is 212-555-9191. Ask for the Publishing Division. If you want to leave a message for me, wait for the beep. Thanks.
If anyone does anything to that plant, they're going to die. You got that? They will fucking... die.
Zenith House Manuscript Report
EDITOR: John Kenton DATE: April 3, 1981 MANUSCRIPT TITLE: Last Survivor AUTHOR'S NAME: James Saltworthy FICTION/NONFICTION: F ILLUSTRATIONS: N AGENT: None RIGHTS OFFERED: Author offers North American but doesn't know what he's talking about, so TBD SUMMARY: This novel is set in the year 1982, but was originally written in 1977. To keep to the writer's intention, the time would have to be changed to at least 1986, 1987, or five years from time of pub.
The basic premise is unique and exciting. A network fading in the ratings (auth calls it UBA, United Broadcasting of America, but it feels like CBS) comes up with a unique game show idea. Twenty-six people are stranded on a desert island, where they must survive for six months. Three trained camera operators are among the contestants. In fact each contestant has a "job" on the island, and the camera operators have to train several contestants in use of the equipment. Other contestants are "farmers," "fishers," "hunters," and so on. The idea is that each week for twenty-six weeks, the contestants as a group must vote one person off the island and into exile. First exile gets one dollar for his trouble. The second gets ten. The third gets one hundred. The fourth gets five hundred. And the last survivor gets a cool million. I know this idea sounds wonky, but Saltworthy actually makes us believe that such a program might find its way onto the air someday, if a network was desperate enough for ratings (and tasteless enough, but on network TV that has never been a problem).
What makes the story brilliant is Saltworthy's delineation of character. TV viewers see the contestants in very simple ways - the Good Young Mother, the Cheerful Athlete, the Rugged Old Fellow, the Tough But Religious Widow. Underneath, however, they are extremely complex. And one of them, a personable young truck driver named Tracy Nordstrom, is actually a dangerous psychopath who will do anything to win the million dollars. In one breathlessly orchestrated scene early in the book, he induces food-poisoning in the Rugged Old Fellow, substituting hallucinogenic mushrooms for the harmless ones gathered by one of the farmers, a sweet ex-hippie who is heartbroken by her perceived mistake and actually attempts suicide (which the network covers up, as Last Survivor has become a monster hit). Ironically, Nordstrom is the most liked contestant, both by the others on the island and by the huge TV audience. (Saltworthy actually made this reader believe such a show could become a national obsession.)
Only one person, Sally