Undo Part 1

Undo.

by Joe Hutsko.

INTRODUCTION TO THE ELECTRONIC EDITION

"What a long, strange trip it's been."

-- The Grateful Dead

As nearly as I can remember, I began writing this novel in the summer of '88, after leaving my job at Apple Computer, Inc., where I worked for almost four years for former Apple chairman John Sculley, as his personal technology advisor. It was a neat job t.i.tle and a lot of fun, but somewhere in there I decided I wanted to become a novelist. Eight years and two t.i.tle-changes later, the first novel that I set out to write, known these days as "Undo," is finally available to readers in this special electronic edition, free of charge.

Electronic books, or e-texts, have been available for some time now so this is hardly groundbreaking news. Or is it? For me, it's a pretty big deal. Primarily because the electronic books that are available to download from the Internet, the World Wide Web, and online services such as CompuServe and America Online, were published previously in hardback or paperback editions, or both. Bruce Sterling's "The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier," for example, was first published in hardback by Bantam in 1992, then in 1993 in paperback, also by Bantam. Sterling wisely retained the electronic rights to his book so that he may - electronically speaking - do as he pleases with his work. To the best of my knowledge, Sterling is the first author to give away his published, in-print book for free on the Net.

I don't know how many people who download e-books actually read them from cover-to-cover, though I suspect the number is rather low. Mainly because the medium isn't as easy on the eyes as traditional paper-based books. I would bet that most people who download e-books - and I'm talking about novels, vs. reference works - browse them part of the way, then delete them from their computer or PDA. As for works of non-fiction, such as Sterling's book, or the enormously serviceable "Elements of Style" (which has recently appeared in e-book format), readers refer to these works on a need-to-know basis. But novels, they're another story.

A novel is something you curl up with and, if it's a good one, lose yourself in, much the way Alice found herself getting lost in that fantastic looking gla.s.s. Perhaps the valuable thing about publishing a novel as an e-text is that it gives readers a taste for the story and for the author's style, so that the reader can then go out and purchase the published edition if they want to.

But let's get back to "Undo," and why making it available for free in this electronic book version is so important to me. The reason is simple: I want people to read it, and this is - so far, anyway - the only way to make that happen. For, despite the hard-fought efforts of not one, not two, but three very reputable literary agents, the book, unlike Mr. Sterling's works, has not found a trade publisher it can call home.

Why? The answer to this question is best summed up by Bantam editor Brian Tart, in his recent letter of rejection:

Ms. Juliet Nicolson Juliet Nicolson Ltd. Literary Agency 71 Chester Row London England SW1W 8JL

Dear Juliet:

Thank you for dropping off Joe Hutsko's ms. while you were in New York. I must say that I am impressed with Mr. Hutsko's writing and believe him to be a talent to watch in the future. His story, however, seemed to me to be a bit stale - it seems to be about six or eight years too late in the making - as I could see, and indeed have seen, this kind of corporate intrigue take place in the world of non-fiction. Because the plot was not as timely as it would need to be to succeed in the commercial marketplace, I will have to pa.s.s.

Please do keep me informed of Mr. Hutsko's projects, should he decide to embark upon writing another ms.

Sincerely, [Signed]

Brian Tart a.s.sociate Editor

Enc.

Give or take a few sentiments, the gist of Mr. Tart's encouraging but ultimately downer letter was repeated by all of the top trade publishing houses. A number of enthusiastic editors - in particular a young editor named John Michel, who pleaded with his senior editors to acquire the novel first at HarperCollins, then later when he moved to Crown (and who has since become a friend, so something good has survived those battles) - tried their best to acquire the book, and in one case an offer was extended to my then-agent, but then two days later the publisher backed out, apologizing that the editor who'd made the offer was in no position to do so, please forgive the error in our ways.

The really troubling thing for me was that when I set out to write my novel, another novel called "The Bonfire of the Vanities," by Tom Wolfe, had taken the reading population by storm. Was not Mr. Wolfe's novel inspired by real-life, by the bond trading schemes that at the time were making front page news? Readers of fiction turned the book into a best-seller, and as one of those readers, I cannot say that I would have read the book were Tom Wolfe to have written it as a non-fiction t.i.tle.

That it was inspired by actual characters and events, and turned by Wolfe's expert hands into a compelling modern-day tale of murder and mortality, were enough to convince me that I could pull off the same sort of magic with my own "what if" scenario, swapping Silicon Valley for New York, and the personal computer business for bond trading.

That this was my first attempt at writing a novel goes a long way toward explaining the earliest rejections of the work, then t.i.tled "Silicon Dreams," by editors unlucky enough to have had it land with a thud on their desks. Somehow I'd lost sight of Mr.

Wolfe's excellent ill.u.s.tration and found myself mimicking, all at once, the likes of Sidney Sheldon, Arthur Hailey, Jackie Collins, and, believe it or not, Stephen King (who happens to be my favorite mainstream read). With so many influences at play in the already befuddled head of an aspiring young writer with dreams of hitting the number one spot on all of the best-seller lists, you (and of course I, this much later) can understand how my storytelling ability left something to be desired.

Still, I pressed on, heeding suggestions I believed were valid (such as: "How dare you kill that character in the middle of the book just because you don't know what to do with her next!").

More than once I put the whole thing on the shelf to give it, and myself, a breather; to put a little s.p.a.ce between us so that our respective flaws could be considered the next time around with a clearer, colder eye. Four rewrites later, including a no-holds-barred excising, I finally had a book, still known then as "Silicon Dreams," that I believed was as good as it was going to get.

And then it happened. A publisher bought it. I had the literary critic Digby Diehl to thank for this good news. At the time Digby was a book reviewer for "Playboy," and also a daily book columnist for the Prodigy online service (where I'd done a brief stint ghost writing for a highly paid high-tech a.n.a.lyst who will remain unnamed). Via e-mail I asked Digby if he'd read my novel and, if he liked it, to suggest editors who may want to take a look at it. Well, Digby'd read it and liked it - enough to personally pa.s.s it along to the head of a new and small-but-going-for-the-big-time publisher named Knightsbridge Publishing, an imprint distributed by the reputable Hearst Corporation. Knightsbridge was founded around the time of the Gulf War, and made its killing, so to speak, with a ma.s.s market paperback best-seller, "The Rape of Kuwait."

The deal was for both hardback and paperback rights, and the publisher himself called me to offer $5000 for the whole package, which I came close to accepting. However, I knew that money matters were best handled by my agent - despite the fact that I had fired her a few months earlier for not having sold the novel herself. Fortunately she forgave me my actions and signed me back up, compelling Knightsbridge to increase its offer to $25,000.

Too bad neither of us ever saw most of that money.

Unfortunately, Knightsbridge went out of business - but not without first boosting my expectations through the exhilarating prepublication process. I was a.s.signed a marvelous editor named Lynette Padwa, whose keen suggestions helped me to make the book a better read. There was even a glossy lavender and gold embossed book jacket with my photo on back atop Digby Diehl's encouraging blurb, and two months before the publication date I received my first bound galley copy, to double-check for typesetting errors before it went off to the printer. The prepublication buzz started up, and a Hollywood producer named Andrew Karsch, who'd just released "The Prince of Tides" with Barbra Streisand, was considering buying a film option on the novel to adapt for a possible a feature film or television miniseries. And just when things couldn't possibly look brighter, they did, when both Kirkus Review and Publishers Weekly asked to see advance reader's copies of the book.

And then the impossible dream turned into a nightmare. I should have known the end was near when instead of receiving the signing advance in one lump sum, as agreed upon, it was coming in smaller and smaller portions (and then only after my hounding the accounting department every day telling them my rent and phone bill were late). You see, I wanted to believe. It was difficult enough to accept that this was finally happening to me - that my first novel was about to be published in hardback to building fanfare. To think otherwise, that something might stop the novel from being published, wasn't a "happy thought," and anything but happy thoughts, my agent advised, would seep disagreeably into the novel's successful launch. But unhappy did things turn when Knightsbridge announced that it was closing shop.

But I was not to be put off. Armed with ten bound galleys, my agent appealed to several hardback publishers...and when they all said no - in almost every case for the same reasons Brian Tart at Bantam gave us - we tried paperback publishers, lowering our expectations and hoping then for a paperback original deal.

Twice we came close. First Ace, then Berkley, however editors at both houses met resistance from editorial boards who felt that the novel would find no audience.

Feeling dejected and down on my luck, I had to blame someone for this conspiracy, so once again I contacted my agent and told her I would be seeking representation elsewhere. This time she told me she wouldn't take me back if I changed my mind, and who could blame her. My next agent, who'd left an old and very successful New York literary agency to start her own agency, was young and fresh and building a name for herself as one to watch in the business, with editors chasing her all over the floor at the first American Booksellers a.s.sociation conference she attended on her own. She had a more focused approach: Talk up the book to a few editors she knew very well and try to get something of a rivalry going for it - before any of them even read it.

Brilliant thinking; this was the kind of agent I wanted on my side. Shooting for freshness, we decided to change the novel's t.i.tle from "Silicon Dreams" to "Double Click," and off it went to the waiting editors. The long and short of it: Neither Random House nor Viking wanted it. Adding insult to injury, one even suggested that if I were to write a non-fiction book he would publish that. What a depressing thought.

Before she'd signed me up, my agent and I had agreed to treat our relationship as a trial agreement. After the rejection, I decided that though she was fast becoming a very hot agent, mainstream fiction wasn't her area of expertise; what I really, really needed was an agent who represented best-selling mainstream authors.

My friend Gloria Nagy, a splendid novelist with seven novels under her belt (one of which, "Looking for Leo," is on its way to becoming a CBS miniseries), put me in touch with her then-agent, Ed Victor, who is based in London, and enjoys a long client list of acclaimed literary and mainstream authors. After Gloria's introduction, I sent my novel to Ed Victor, and although he'd rejected the novel six years ago, suggesting it needed a lot of work (advise I took to heart), this time he responded positively, saying he had enjoyed it.

Yet, because his client list was so full and active, he was at the time not taking on new fiction writers. He did however direct me to an agent named Juliet Nicolson, with whom he had begun a working alliance, and to whom he would be happy to send my novel for consideration. A spirited British woman, Juliet had lived and worked in publishing in the United States for many years, and had decided to return to London to start her own agency. Several weeks later she faxed me to say that she thoroughly enjoyed the novel, and that Ed Victor lends his full support to her should I decide to have her represent me. I called her back thirty seconds later and shouted "Yes," and, another long and short of it, despite their combined efforts, their long careers of landing huge book deals, the novel "Double Click"

still found no publishing house.

After sending the novel to a long list of hardback publishers, then trying, as before, to secure a paperback original deal, Juliet felt it was time to put the book away and concentrate on my next novel, which I had in fits and starts tried to get off the ground for the last however many years. She stressed that someday we would sell "Double Click," possibly after my next novel or the one after that, and a.s.sured me that this was how first novels sometimes turned out (after all, although John Grisham's blockbuster "The Firm" made him a household name, his first novel was the small-press-published "A Time to Kill," which Doubleday/Dell then rereleased to astonishing success). So I put "Double Click" away once more and went back to writing the video game strategy guides I'd found my way into to pay the rent, and that was the end of that...

For about six months, anyway.

Then I was struck by an idea: To rewrite "Double Click" just one more time, but this time around, fix the number one complaint that editors had voiced: That the story was too dated. So instead of playing out the trials and tribulations of my characters on a stage set in the by-now commonplace (and therefore, predictable) personal and mainframe computer market, I decided to shift the backdrop to a more modern setting: advanced handheld computers and pocket communicators, also known as PDAs, or personal digital a.s.sistants.

I told my agent none of this, and quietly set to reworking the plot and backdrop to accommodate my change of heart. To make the story feel fresh to me I changed most of the characters names, but other than that each of their stories and struggles remained the same. To ensure that I didn't date the story before I even finished it, I wove in a number of not quite ready for prime time technologies, including practical speech synthesis and voice recognition. The final rewrite in effect put the novel ever so slightly into the future, and as far as I could tell squashed the criticism that the story was too stale.

Taking my agent by complete surprise, I sent her the new ma.n.u.script, which I had ret.i.tled "Undo" (a contemporary term, recognizable to readers, that represents the novel's premise and the underlying theme at play in each of the primary characters'

lives - and, a little closer to home, sums up my own story in trying to turn around the mysterious forces that have stood in the way of getting this novel published). Well, she was shocked, to say the least, and complimented me on my patience and perseverance.

While my agent was busy reading and considering what to do with the new and improved "Undo," I'd begun, and have since completed, my second novel, "r.g.b." The book's first chapter, which I'd written a few years ago, was excerpted in a small literary journal called "Puck," and represents for me my "other"

style of writing, which, for lack of a better word, I can only describe as more...intricate and challenging to read, less mainstream.

Which brings us to the present. Because "r.g.b." is not what my agent - make that, former agent - considers commercially viable, she has decided to drop me as a client, suggesting with a wish of good luck that I find myself an agent who wants to represent both of my "voices" - the mainstream style of "Undo," and the less mainstream style of "r.g.b."

So, here we are. My old friend John Michel has offered to help me find a new literary agent, and I'm about to begin writing a screenplay called "Misguided Angel" that I've wanted to write for years. Plus, I'm already thinking about the second screenplay I'll write after that, and the next mainstream novel, and the next less mainstream novel too. So I'm anything but down for the final count.

Have I learned anything in all these years? Tons. For one thing, my first two agents weren't so unfit after all - each did the best job she could in trying to sell the novel, and in the end even my third, highly esteemed agent met with the same resistance that the previous two encountered. Second, the publishing business is more a mystery to me than ever. That this book has not found a home has somehow turned in my heart from a troubling fact of life, to something of a testament to optimism, a proud eccentricity, a character-building battle scar of sorts.

I suppose that's just how we fragile beings adapt to unrealized expectations, dashed hopes. Still, having just completed my new novel, I'm all juiced up and feeling groovy, raring to give it another go - after all, it's all anyone who decides to try to make a living telling stories can do...try, try again.