TOM: Or, I should say, he was like a man who stands upon a hill above the town he has left,
yet does not say "The town is near" but turns his eyes upon the distant soaring ranges.
The end.
TOM: Mighty books. Mighty books.
May I help you? God damn. Look at all these books. Do you ever stop to consider the pure man-sweat
that went into each and every line? Little testaments of faith, screamed out in the dark night,
in the cold, dark night when the wind's blowing alpine, in the vain hope that someone will read and hear and understand.
You must be Thomas Wolfe. Are all these your authors? Not Tolstoy.
(LAUGHS) Mr. Perkins.
Please, sit down. I wasn't even gonna come. Prefer to get my rejections in the mail.
There's something surgically antiseptic about those familiar words, "We regret to inform you..."
But I wanted to meet you. The man who first read Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald and said,
"Yes! The world needs poets. "My God! Someone publish this bastard,
"'cause the world needs poets. "Or why even live?" So I'm looking at that man now.
Well, congratulations. On finding one genius. Two, if you count Hemingway.
As for this one, he'll persevere. You can't kill the deep roots by cutting off a few top branches.
And the roots go deep, Mr. Perkins. And they are unassailable.
Mr. Wolfe, we intend to publish your book. (LAUGHS)
If that's acceptable to you. Now, I'd like to do some work with you.
In its current state, O Lost is simply too long for one volume. I think you could afford to shape it a bit,
cut off a few of the "top branches". Mr. Perkins. I know you're not fooling with me. You don't look the type.
But my God, this is too much for me. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know.
Every son-of-a-bitch publisher in New York hates my book. Mr. Wolfe, if you could sit down. Tom. Tom.
Tom, please. Tom. I take it your book is autobiographical in nature.
No other way to write, is there? Eugene Gant is me! And my mama is Eliza, and my papa is W.O. Gant.
We'll get into all that. I know it's too long. I know it's too long. My lord, you don't know how I struggled to cut the gorgon down.
You don't know how I fought with her. But I'll cut anything you say. You just give me the word.
Tom, the book belongs to you.
All I want to do is to bring your work to the public in its best possible form. My job, my only job,
is to put good books into the hands of readers. Thank you, Mr. Perkins.
Now, Scribner's has agreed to give you our standard advance against royalties.
If this is satisfactory, we can proceed at whatever pace is comfortable for you.
$500? (EXHALES) No one ever thought my writing was worth a dime.
(TOM SOBBING) Oh, lord!
Do you mind if we start tomorrow? Of course.
I promise to work hard.
Yeah! (LAUGHING LOUDLY)
Oh, lord! (LIFT BELL DINGS)
(HORN HONKING) I can barely... Oh, mighty. Oh, indeedy.
(DOOR OPENS)
"Mr. Wolfe, we intend to publish your book." No!
(LAUGHS) Tom!
(TOM SOBBING)
Oh, my angel, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, my lover, my love.
(BOTH MOAN) (LAUGHS)
I'm so... I'm so happy for you. Oh!
How much you figure we have to cut? I'm guessing around 300 pages.
It's not the page count that's important, it's telling the story. There it is. Four years of my life.
My heart bleeds to see any of it go. But I guess it's die dog or eat the hatchet.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
TOM: The last few weeks working on the book have been the most thunderingly thrilling
of my entire woebegone life. Glad I could amuse you.
You spend your lifetime in the pages of books, as we do, and those characters emerge that speak to you deep,
to the marrow. They are your mirrors. In my time,
I aspired to Sydney Carton. Or Pierre from the Tolstoy.
But I know that's not who I am, much as I would have it so. We are not those characters we want to be.
We're those characters we are. I'm Caliban.
That island creature, monstrous and deformed. Caliban.
So ugly. So alien.
Hurt and shunned into poetry.
What is Manhattan but an isle full of noises? "Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not?"
"Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments "Will hum about mine ears,
"and sometimes voices "That, if I then had waked after long sleep
"Will make me sleep again."
(LAUGHS)
MAX: I have a thought about the book, O Lost. I think we should discuss the title.
I don't know that it truly captures the meat of your book. Here, imagine you're a reader.
You're wandering through a bookstore and lots of books and you see a book titled Trimalchio in West Egg
and you see one titled The Great Gatsby. Which are you going to pick up? (CHUCKLES) Gatsby.
That's why Scott changed his original title. He knew it needed a bit more meat.
It's your book, just give it a think.
Here we are. My God, Max! It's a mansion.
(WOMEN LAUGHING) LOUISE: It is so nice to finally meet you, Mr. Wolfe. Max has told us so much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GUDxhDKlKw
Thomas Wolfe (? - 1938) " Look Homeward Angel, " and ," You Can't Go Home Again. "
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Cross Creek) was also one of Max Perkins writers.
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