I received an email last week letting me know Al Zuckerman died. Al was my agent at the start of my professional writing career right up until his retirement in 2020 at the age of eighty-eight. His accomplishments in the publishing industry are impressive, his impact on my life, immeasurable.
I met Al through a series of plot points so linear a reader would be tempted to close the cover on the book if he or she didn’t like that type of story.
I’d known I’d wanted to write fiction for a living since I was ten years old but was knocking on thirty without having achieved public success beyond a few short story placements in low or no paying markets. Things changed when I left my cave to attend a writing workshop where my submission was the first chapter of Generation Dead. I hadn’t been in a workshopping environment since college, but the format was fairly close to what I expected. There were four pros who were the instructors, three writers I admired and an editor “from a major New York publishing house.” After introductions, the twenty or so aspirants were broken up in small groups and went round-robin to each of the pros where we critiqued each other’s pre-read work, with the attendant pro giving their final thoughts as a summation.
I was second to be critiqued at the editor’s table. My heart sank when, after some well-intentioned advice from my peers, the editor turned to me and said, “I don’t have much to say about this, you can turn to the last page and read my comment.”
Deep breath, turn the page. She’d written, “Except for the typo on page seven, I absolutely love this!!!!” I might be exaggerating the number of exclamation points.
And then, possessed of a sudden wave of confidence I’d never before experienced, or perhaps an actual demon, I said, “Excellent. When can I expect your offer?”
She smiled; we moved on. Three weeks later I received an email from her with an offer.
For three books.
I called the other instructors to thank them, and one, after popping the metaphorical champagne, suggested I talk to an agent before I signed anything. He offered to call his agent, Al, and maybe Al could partner me up with one of his junior agents. A day or two later Al himself called me and said he might like to represent me. I asked if I could meet him first; a suggestion I think he found (like most of my comments and suggestions) amusing, and said sure, come on over, and we set a date for me to see him.
If the above sounds hopelessly naïve, it gets worse. Or better, depending on your mindset. Anyone who has read my blogs over the years has likely detected a thread of naivete running through my comments and observations of “the industry”, a thick, knotty thread one wouldn’t necessarily be wrong to interpret instead as stupidity. Case in point: at the time, I knew next to nothing about agents or agencies; my only concept of them was that they were places where you sent dozens and dozens of query letters and in exchange received a form letter, no reply at all, or another form letter with “close—this was really close! Keep trying!” scrawled in the margin, a letter that somehow lifted your spirits and also broke your heart for a few days. I’d wallpapered my room with both types. So, when I boarded the train in New Haven for Danny’s Big Trip to New York City, wearing my dress shoes and new sportscoat, I had no idea that Al was the founder of Writers House, one of the most respected agencies in the business, and that he, Al Zuckerman, was considered both a titan and a pioneer in the field.
I enjoyed that train ride and the long walk to Writers House as much as any trip I’ve ever taken before or since. I remember some of my fellow passengers, I wrote down parts of the conversations they were having in the notebook I carried with me. I remember what I was feeling when I was looking through the smudgy windows at the morning sky, and what I was thinking when I was walking up the stairs into Grand Central Station. I was early; I’m always early, and so I enjoyed a coffee and an almond croissant to pass the time and I swear to you every time I’ve had that pairing since I can summon that specific moment, that wonderful moment, of my life.
I arrived at Writers House, and it was everything one would imagine if one imagined literary agencies; a stately brownstone on 26th Street, all dark wood and beautiful furnishings, books everywhere, a reception desk just inside the front door, guarding the stairs leading upwards, the receptionist answering three calls before greeting you, motioning to a hard wooden bench for you to wait. I tried eavesdropping over the sounds of my breathing and the beating of my heart, slightly elevated after my trek down Park Avenue. Finally, I was sent up the stairs.
Al was at a large, cluttered desk in the center of the office, with the sunlight reflecting through the windows behind him, giving him a halo and at times making it difficult to look at him directly. I took the chair across from the desk, which I remember as being lower (and certainly less comfortable) than the one Al sat in. All the classic power moves. Al wasted little time; after a few questions about who I was and where I was from, he told me how much he’d loved the pages he’d read and how he sensed a certain raw talent and strong work ethic in me, and assured me he wanted to represent me. He said he didn’t use a contract with his authors but instead has a simple one-page open agreement giving both parties the ability to part ways at any time.
“That sounds great!” I said. Or may have said. My memories of that first visit to his office are a little diffuse due to the absolute bomb he hit me with next.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “We’re going to turn that deal down, and I’m going to find you a better deal.” He then listed all the reasons, and there were several, why it would be better for my career in the long term to go that route rather than sign the contract I had yet to receive.
The more he spoke, the more I felt like I was falling into a bottomless hole or descending in an elevator right to hell. The halo of light around his head no longer seemed so beatific. I’d labored, for decades, to put myself onto the path for publication, and I’d finally, finally given myself a chance. I’d finally wrested an opportunity through, or so I thought at the time, sheer willpower, determination and gumption. I had an offer! For three books! It was the proverbial bird in hand, and this man I’d just met, who I had to squint uphill to see, was telling me to release it back into the wild. I’d naively—there’s that word again!—thought we were meeting to discuss Al representing the next dozen books in what was certain to be a long and prolific career, and maybe read the contract over before I signed. I’d thought I was striding into his office as some sort of conquering hero, brandishing my offer like the golden spoils of a hard-fought campaign, and Al was essentially telling me was that I was barely even on the field of engagement.
“How does that sound?” he said, brightly. Throughout the years I knew him, Al always had a bright, amused lilt and cadence to his voice
I may have said that it sounds good but needed a day to think about it. I might have said nothing at all, just risen shakily to my feet and started shuffling towards the stairs, because I was so choked up at this unexpected turn. I was robbed of words; I literally couldn’t speak. I felt a sudden wave of pressure behind my eyes and a throb in my temples, like I was fighting back tears.
Al must have sensed my distress, because what I remember then is Al, a man more than twice my age, coming around that giant desk and catching me before I started to descend. He must have seen the shock in my face or realized I was struggling for breath, because he caught me and patted my arm and said, his voice kind, reassuring, “It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
The long walk back to the station and the long train ride and the long drive back home were not filled with the romance and starry-eyed wonder of the ride in, that’s for sure. It was the dark night of the soul in all its cliched glory. Al’s thesis was my career would be over before it had really begun if I went with the initial deal, and when I’d seen the books of all the Writers House clients lining the shelves of the office, I realized he likely knew something about the industry. But was he gaslighting me? Was everyone gaslighting me? Was I gaslighting myself?
Maybe I was gaslighting myself, but I remembered the look on his face—a face I could finally see clearly now it was no longer haloed by the fun—as he patted my arm at the top of the stairs. He looked concerned, yes—but also confident. He truly believed it was all going to be okay.
Kindness and conviction, that’s what sold me. When I finally arrived home, I sent Al an email letting him know of my decision, and from that moment he was my agent.
If this the point of the story where one would expect a pivot to a second act of exploitation and misery, I’m happy to disappoint the reader, for once. Within a few weeks of my near breakdown, he called to let me know he had secured a deal with a brilliant editor, a deal which had considerably better terms than the one I’d scored on my own, and after that I didn’t have to worry about a thing in my career for many years except for writing the next paragraph. Working with Al was wonderful in every way, and together we were able to share in successes far beyond my wildest dreams and aspirations as a writer.
Speaking of disappointing the reader, it would be fair to criticize the post thus far as being predominately about me and not the person I set out to thank. I was only physically in Al’s presence a handful of times in my life; a couple lunches with editors, a party held in his honor, a dinner he held at his home for my wife and me. The last time I saw him was when I took him to lunch to celebrate the release of I Still See You, the film based on my book Break My Heart 1,000 Times. He chose Keen’s Steak House, and, typical of me, I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was a vegetarian. We weren’t together often, but we spoke quite frequently, usually about whatever project I was working on at the time, but also our families, current events, his tennis game. The timing of these calls was interesting, also, as he would often call me while he was on vacation in Florida or somewhere else. He had an uncanny knack, a sixth sense, really, of when I might be struggling with the writing, because it would seem he would always call me whenever I was at my lowest ebb and offer cheerful words of encouragement, some affirmation of my ability, all delivered with his characteristic chuckle. The lift I received from the energy he conveyed always sent me back to the computer with renewed vigor.
Publishing, writing—it all may be a business, and maybe some of us would be better off if we thought of it completely in that way, if we stripped away all our romantic notions and compartmentalized whatever high-minded ideas of what writing can do for readers and for ourselves which we carry. I think though, for many of us—certainly for myself and the person I was at the time I met Al, it was far better for me to hand over the business portion of writing to him and cling to the romantic notions and the high-minded ideas like a life raft, even if that life raft just sort of kept me somewhere off-shore, somewhere between the white sand beach and the horizon. For me, handing over the business to someone who could tell me it was going to be okay, and who believed it, and who would call and check in to see how the work was going, and how I was doing—that had immeasurable value. Not just in the business, but in my life.
Every writer should have that benefit; someone who calls to check on them, someone who calls to see how the work is going.
Thanks, Al. Godspeed. It’s all going to be okay.