{"id":16112,"date":"2022-01-18T15:47:01","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T21:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavenderink.org\/site\/?post_type=product&p=16112"},"modified":"2026-01-18T16:02:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T22:02:49","slug":"three-letters","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.lavenderink.org\/site\/shop\/three-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill Lavender<\/a><\/h2>\n

Three Letters<\/i><\/h2>\n

9781952419614 (pbk.) (Spuyten Duyvil)<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

455 pages: $25.95
\n2019<\/p>\n

\n

Three Letters,<\/em> published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2021, is a novel in the form of three sequential novellas, tracking the life of a hapless (picaresque) hero known only as Q.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Author\u2019s Preface<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gentle Reader:<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you understand, without my having to write it, that I hope this book\u2014product of my imagination and reason, my dreams, my readings, and my life\u2014will be the best book ever written, full of the most elegant and clever prose, every word le mot juste<\/i><\/span>, every word with a double (triple, quadruple?) intention.\u00a0 <\/span>But if, as Dickens has it, like begets like, what could this sterile, untilled time of ours beget but a shrivelled, whimsical character, full of thoughts that ought never to have existed, thoughts that might arise in a prison, full of misery and mourning?<\/p>\n

What we love in a story, as that infallible arbiter of literary taste, the Market, proves, are love and romantic grief, scandal, and happy endings where all that has come before is reversed.\u00a0 <\/span>However, I (and though I pass for the father, I am but the stepfather of Q<\/i><\/span>) have no desire to go with this fashion, nor to implore you, dear reader, perhaps with tears in my eyes, as others do, to pardon or excuse the defects you\u2019ll perceive in this child of mine.\u00a0 <\/span>You are neither its kinsman nor its friend; your soul is your own and your will as free as anyone\u2019s.\u00a0 <\/span>You\u2019re master of your own house just as our President is master of our taxes.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cUnder my cloak I kill the king,\u201d the saying goes; under cover, all of us are free.\u00a0 <\/span>Thus you are exempt from any obligation to read on, and you can speak as you will of the story without fear of being abused for any ill or rewarded for any good you might report.<\/p>\n

And though the composition of this book cost me a bit of labor, no section of it caused more anxiety than this Preface.\u00a0 <\/span>How many times did I sit down at the laptop to write it, and how many times did I get up again, not having any idea how to start?\u00a0 <\/span>One of these times, as I was pondering the blank screen, chin in hand, thinking what I might say, a certain clever friend of mine, who works in the publishing industry, stepped into my office and inquired what was so distracting.\u00a0 <\/span>I told him I was mired in writer\u2019s block thinking of the Preface I had to make for my novel, Q<\/i><\/span>, and it was troubling me so it was causing me to question the entire project.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can\u2019t work,\u201d I told him.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cHow will a general fiction market take to me, so late in my career, after all these years in the oblivion of poetry, putting out a book so arch, so devoid of innovation, so derivative and allusive, with many parts stolen outright, utterly lacking in inspiration?\u00a0 <\/span>I wish I could handle\u2014especially since so many others seem proficient\u2014a story full of emotion and devoid of political thinking, or a great moral quandary in a bedroom conversation, or any of the many genres that treat the emotional and philosophical tribulations of the upper-middle-class American.\u00a0 <\/span>But I have neither the gift for scatology nor a reviewer in my pocket.\u00a0 <\/span>Should I make, for the back cover, a queue of authors I\u2019ve heard of, beginning with Acker and ending with Zukofsky, just to boast the respectability of a list?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll have to do without the customary mention of corporate sponsors, grant agencies, and previous works every book includes at the beginning to prove the legitimacy of its author.\u00a0 <\/span>I can get two of three friends to write endorsements, I suppose, for the jacket, and this might be enough to trick a few people into buying it, since if they don\u2019t recognize the author of the quote they\u2019ll assume it is someone famous they\u2019re unaware of and be ashamed to mention it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut all in all,\u201d I continued, \u201cI think it best to let my Q <\/i><\/span>remain buried in some archive where a graduate student may one day discover it and bring it to light as a lost masterpiece, in which case everyone could read about it without having to read in it.\u00a0 <\/span>Alas, it appears I\u2019ve wasted all these years on a project which will net me nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend broke into a laugh and then slapped his thigh. \u201cOh come on, Bill, I\u2019ve always thought of you as smart and practical.\u00a0 <\/span>These trivial details are bothering you because you don\u2019t know how the business works.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ll turn your Q<\/i><\/span> into a best seller in a heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d I replied.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cAnd just how do you propose we do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he said, \u201cyour problem is that you\u2019re worrying too much about the content and not enough about the package.\u00a0 <\/span>You\u2019ve got the right idea with the blurbs.\u00a0 <\/span>And you can get an epigram from Google\u2122 quotations.\u00a0 <\/span>What you want is something from the Bible.\u00a0 <\/span>The Christian Market is growing every day and is easily captured.\u00a0 <\/span>The slightest mention of the Bible will do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d I protested, \u201csome of the things I say\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry about what you say<\/i>,\u201d he insisted.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThey won\u2019t even notice the content.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m going to suggest a strategy that\u2019s lately become the norm.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ll utilize an analytic program to scan for products, motifs, and current phrases from best sellers over the past two years.\u00a0 <\/span>Then we can seed your novel with snippets of these, product names, foods, cars, and current slang.\u00a0 <\/span>It\u2019s quick and easy; we just use search-and-replace.\u00a0 <\/span>And then you can use these product placements to get free advertising.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the biggest question of all, of course, the one that makes more difference to sales than any other aspect of a book, is the cover.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ll have my friend who is a market psychologist run reports on the color combinations that are selling best in the current milieu, and we\u2019ll look at the semiotics of various symbolic indices.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ll need to figure out if we ought to go the pistol-and-garters route, or if earth-tones and nature scenes are working these days, or if dogs have come back into fashion.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs to this Preface you\u2019re sweating over, don\u2019t.\u00a0 <\/span>No one reads them.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ll just paste in jabber-text to fill those couple of pages, put \u2018Author\u2019s Preface\u2019 at the top, and no one will be the wiser.\u201d<\/p>\n

I listened to my friend\u2019s indisputable wisdom with stunned recognition.\u00a0 <\/span>His observations made such an impression on me that I decided on this audience-mocking form for the Preface, simply stolen from an earlier work, to allow you, dear reader, to prove my friend\u2019s good sense and devour this product which ridicules your ignorance as if it were the latest pharmaceutical fad, the Viagra\u2122 of whatever year this is.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cFear God and the stupidity of the populace,\u201d said Pound, and we prove that son of a bitch right every day.\u00a0 <\/span>Please, comrade, continue the trend and let this handsome jacket decorate your shelves today.<\/p>\n

Take this story of Q<\/i><\/span>, a generic demographic composite, and your mirror.\u00a0 <\/span>Yes, that shadow you just startled is yourself.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s hoping God continues to withhold your good sense.<\/p>\n

Vale.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three Letters, by Bill Lavender (2022)
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