Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,66

article, wishing I had never heard of David Foster Wallace.

“You can’t possibly print this piece!” Doc marched into my office, waving the pages in my face.

“I know it’s edgy….” I began.

Doc, normally a mild man, stamped his foot. “I don’t give a damn about that,” he said. “This is writing of the highest order, and it tackles real issues. But David Foster Wallace is so pretentious and arrogant, and…” Spluttering, he began reading some of the article out loud. “Listen to how condescending he is toward all the people at the Lobster Festival. It’s insulting! You’ve got to get him to take some of that out. Otherwise I don’t think we can print it.”

Caught up in the ethical argument, I’d skipped right past the condescension, but he did have a point. “I’ll see what I can do,” I promised.

A few hours later I passed the art department and saw Richard and Doc nose to nose, gesticulating wildly. They rarely disagreed and I edged in to hear what they were saying. “You’re serious?” Doc was almost shouting. “You really like this lobster piece?”

I slowed down, eager to hear what Richard would say. “I think it’s amazing! It’s the coolest thing we’ve ever published.” All around him, the art people nodded their heads.

Larry uncharacteristically reserved judgment. “So what do you think?” I pressed him.

He was quiet for a moment. “It’s problematic,” he said. “Readers are going to hate it. But there’s not another food magazine that would even consider running this, and it really sets us apart. But…”

I waited, worried about what was coming next. “I think we have to show it to Giulio. He can’t sugarcoat it when he tries to sell an advertiser in. They need to know what they’re getting.”

“Then show it to him,” I said. Was I hoping, in my secret heart, that Giulio would tell me I couldn’t run this impossible piece?

Half an hour later, Giulio came bounding down the hall and I prepared for the worst.

“Is she in?” I heard him ask Robin. I looked up, apprehensive.

“This is so exciting!” He held out the pages.

“So you think you can sell someone into the piece?”

“Oh, absolutely!” His confidence surprised me. “Most of our advertising partners are on board with the evolution of the book. They understand that Gourmet is redefining what it means to be an authority on food. This just takes it to a new level.”

“But do the readers understand that?” muttered Doc when I told him.

* * *

—

WALLACE HIMSELF WAS thorny and, when we asked for changes, irate. Passing Jocelyn’s office one morning, I came screeching to a halt as I heard her say, “Have you thought about it? That colon seems very aggressive to me!”

“Are you really having a battle over punctuation?” I asked when she put the phone down.

“He’s a grammar nerd,” she replied. “He’s very granular about the piece and he’s arguing over every comma. I think his attitude is that he’ll do what he does and we can take it or leave it.”

“Let him have all the colons and commas he wants,” I said. He’d been gracious about Doc’s objections and removed the more caustic remarks about festival attendees. “But there are two more things that have to go. The Mengele reference is over the top. And I won’t be a shill for PETA.”

She sighed. “He won’t like it. And he’s upset about the title. He thinks ‘To Die For’ is too flip.”

“So does he have a better idea?”

“No,” she said, “but I do. What if we call it ‘Consider the Lobster’? You know, after the M.F.K. Fisher piece.”

“It’s perfect!” I said. “But he’ll probably hate that too.”

As press time came closer, Jocelyn and DFW were still fighting it out. “The good news,” she said, “is that he loves ‘Consider the Lobster’; it turns out his mother is a Fisher fan. And he’s reluctantly agreed to remove the reference to Mengele. But…”

I had a bad feeling about what was coming. “He won’t budge on PETA. We’ve hit a wall. If you really want him to take that out, you’re going to have to talk to him yourself.”

I paced up and down my office, wondering what I could possibly say to persuade him. He held the trump card; he could always take his article elsewhere. This was a brilliant piece of writing, and I had no doubt the editors of The New Yorker or Harper’s or The Atlantic Monthly would be thrilled to get their hands on it. For them