Andrew Ferguson, salesman
Casual Death of a Salesman "Y "ou ought to talk to your publisher," said the radio host. "They're really overselling you." She was the substitute host of a high-rated show out west, and as I...
...I was two minutes into my talk when the first drop of perspiration fell...
...But I'm not complaining...
...I've been transformed from a mild-mannered hack, whose deskbound livelihood entails typing and making phone calls, into a traveling salesman, tirelessly hawking a product...
...On air in ten seconds...
...The reason is simple if not entirely honorable...
...When I was halfway through, it seemed as though a puffy little rain cloud had settled over the podium, releasing a gentle shower onto my handwritten notes and making them all but illegible...
...It occurs at very close quarters: usually in a nook tucked amid the stacks, with folding chairs arrayed in a semicircle mere inches before the podium...
...Let me be clear: I'm not complaining...
...I gave my first talk on a warm June evening, and the temperature in the store rose to the high eighties...
...Every bit of publicity your publisher writes and sends out about your book—it all says, 'Amusing, witty, laugh-out-loud funny, et cetera, et cetera.' But the thing is, it isn't funny...
...Headphones...
...And as a salesman I have assumed a posture of total sycophancy toward anyone who can help me move units...
...But not funny...
...I have yet to faint...
...I said...
...She was the substitute host of a high-rated show out west, and as I took my seat in her studio I didn't want to seem like a rube—like a superannuated author on his first book tour, which is, however, what I am—so I just said, "They are...
...I'm reading it over the weekend and I'm like, 'They said this was funny!' I'm like, 'Jeez, this is really serious.' A few good lines, I guess...
...But not always...
...It isn't...
...she cried suddenly, sitting bolt upright...
...She laughed and laughed, and within three minutes she was completely asleep—lost in mouth-gaping, adenoid-exposing, head-rolling slumber...
...Tell your publisher...
...I don't dare complain...
...Before too long three or four customers sat down too...
...Even better, with only two exceptions I have been spared the humiliation of arriving at a bookstore for a reading only to find that no one has bothered to show up to hear me...
...I will," I said...
...Speaking at bookstores is a particularly nerve-racking form of the art...
...The traffic jams that freeze the downtown of every city in America, the cluelessness of rental car clerks, the hallucinatory illogic of airport security—believe me, there's no end to my bitching...
...every wobble of the author's voice is picked up, every quiver of the hand is seen...
...But about the stone-headed radio host...
...Nevertheless, I have managed to turn this shortcoming of mine into a little joke that I use at the beginning of my talks: "I wanted to be a writer," I say, "so I wouldn't have to be a talker," which serves to lower the audience's expectations and also elicits a mild laugh, which in turn relaxes me a little bit...
...I will not complain...
...And the surly skycaps—I'll complain about them...
...For one thing, I have until now been able to arrange my life in such a way as to avoid the professional activity I dislike above all others—speaking before an audience of my fellow human beings—and it turns out that selling a book involves a nearly endless series of events which require me to speak to an audience...
...On one such occasion the store owner took such pity that she insisted on occupying a front-row seat herself, as a way of encouraging others in the store to join her...
...About the early morning flights with the sting still fresh from the previous evening's nightcap(s)—I'll complain about those...
...But I'm not complaining...
...Really...
...This was not the worst thing that happened to me over the last several weeks, as I humped my way from city to city trying to force people to buy this book I've written...
...Andrew Ferguson...
...I glanced briefly up at the audience and saw a young woman turn to her date and wipe her brow with a theatrical back of her hand...
...The front row is so close that if the speaker fainted— always a risk in my case—he would fall into someone's lap...
...For the most part, the radio interviewers have been friendly and not stupid...
...Such intimacy means no sign of weakness escapes notice...
...One reason I wanted to be a writer," I said, "was that I wouldn't have to be a talker...
...It worked...
...Xanax helps too...
...At all...
...Not at all...
...Frankly, I'm not so sure we would've had you on if we'd known...
...Salesman is not a role I'm cut out for...
...Yeah," she said, holding up a sheaf of promotional material...
Vol. 12 • July 2007 • No. 43
