K evin Chapel, famous boy novelist battling writer’s block, met with my boss again during my vacation. He hasn’t published fiction in 10 years, but he can still bypass me and the magazine’s other two junior editors and pitch his wares directly to the chief. Only Damon takes exception to this breach of protocol on professional grounds. Kathleen and I aren’t ambitious enough to fret about being passed over, but these meetings rile us, too. Our boss says Kevin Chapel’s pitches are “messy,” code in our office for article pitches that double as cries for help. The three of us are failed writers. We wanted to be Kevin Chapel once; if he’s unraveling openly, we want to watch.
I feel emboldened by my week away. I’ve been to a music festival in Texas. I feel sun-browned and
sleep-deprived and a little bit rock ’n’ roll. So I ask him. I walk right into Spencer Willmuth’s office and ask to read Kevin Chapel’s pitch.
Willmuth shakes his head like I’m alluding to a terrible accident. “Someone should kill that reviewer,” he says, “the one who called Chapel the Sherwood Anderson of his generation. It ruined him.” Before I can speak, he points a finger at me and continues, “Your generation needs a Sherwood Anderson. Chapel needs to step up to the plate and stop peddling smut.” He hits a few computer keys and emails the pitch to my desk.
I read Chapel’s book, Meet the Mastersons. It’s a lovely novel, but I think it’s kind of a literary Fabergé egg: exquisite but useless. In the late ’80s, there was a short-lived sitcom called Mr. Belvedere about a British butler working for a crass American family he considered beneath him. Whenever the kids tried Belvedere’s patience, he reminded them that he owned a Fabergé egg and could, at any given moment, sell the egg, get rich, and stop putting up with their bullshit.
“My generation” never embraced this show. We never understood why Belvedere didn’t just sell his fucking egg.