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ANECDOTES about ELEANOR BERRY by Rozanne Robinson PhD., Professor in English Literature, now occupying her time as a freelance journalist. The callousness of Literary Agents as experienced by Eleanor Berry. Eleanor Berry is vehemently hostile towards parties in a position of strength, who abuse those who are frail or vulnerable. She despises advocates of victory to "the fittest of the fittest" who leave fragile parties by the wayside. Berry has made this observation in relation to writers, who have never written before and are coldly rebuffed with rejection notes from literary agents and publishers. It is not often easy for a first-time writer to find a publisher. When the writer sends off a manuscript, he is often so nervous of rejection, that he waits, sometimes unable to sleep, until the literary agent or publisher has contacted him. Berry knew a woman who wrote a book over and over again, and, each time it was rejected. Someone had told her that an unknown author has one out of forty chances of being accepted. This statement is not entirely true. It is exaggerated. Berry's friend was a stylish, original and extremely talented writer. Her name was Frances Vernon.She showed her some of her work. She sent her manuscript to a literary agent. Her agent read parts of it and told the author it was unfit to be passed on to a publisher. It is usually the literary agents, rather than the publishers, who are cruel and ruthless to first-time authors. They often don't take the trouble to tell the author what is wrong with the manuscript or to suggest how it can be improved. No words of encouragement are given. Just a rejection slip. Very occasionally the literary agent writes a short, curt letter to the author. Berry's friend sent her manuscript to eighteen literary agents. Each one rejected her. She could take no more. She committed suicide. Berry had similar trouble with her first published book, Tell Us a Sick One, Jakey. At least ten literary agents and fifteen publishers rejected it. It was finally published on about the sixteenth or seventeenth attempt. When writing the book, a black comedy about a mortuary attendant who dies of a brain tumour, Berry had extensive fits of despair. She wondered whether the book, or any books following it, would ever be published. At the time of writing Tell Us a Sick One, Jakey, she thought the book was, to quote her own words, "Witty, fascinating and brilliant." It was not until after its publication that she re-read it and found it to be a "vintage, walking embarrassment." She had the book shredded. The following lively and robust correspondence with a certain Imogen Parker, working for a firm of literary agents called Curtis Brown at the time, illustrates how very strongly Berry feels about the powerful taking unfair advantage of the weak, however determined and ambitious the weak party may be. It is to be noted that Imogen Parker refused to suggest ways in which the book could be improved. What irritated Berry most was Parker's insertion of her qualification MA Oxon, in brackets after her name and the outrageous manner in which she underlined it. The main theme of Berry's letter to her, targets her arrogant behaviour in this regard.
CURTIS BROWN 1 Craven Hill London W2 3EP Telephone 01-262 1011 30th June 1983 Ms Eleanor Berry Flat 21 151 Grosvenor Road London SW1
Dear Ms Berry, Thank you for your letter. We cannot undertake to give detailed reports on every manuscript we consider. You will appreciate that humour is a particularly difficult category to criticise. What one person finds amusing may leave another completely cold, and there is very little constructive criticism a reader may offer. I think I told you on the 'phone that your manuscript would be difficult to place because of its length and because so many publishers have rejected it already. Yours sincerely, (Signed Imogen Parker) Imogen Parker (MA Oxon)
Ref: FAB.2 Imogen Parker MA OXON acknowledged Curtis Brown, "Literary" Agents, 1 Craven Hill, London, W2. 16th May, 1984
Oxon dear, I am delighted to enclose herewith a copy of my Tell Us a Sick One, Jakey, which has just come into print. In a letter to me dated 30th June 1983, you wrote: "You will appreciate that humour is a particularly difficult category to criticise. What one person finds amusing may leave another completely cold." Well well well. "Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York." ****1 So my Jakey left you cold, did it? You can come in out of the cold now, Oxon, dear. Besides, the bitter cold Oxon endured shows that Oxon overlooked one vital point: Jakey was not a cruel mockery of the Grotesque. Jakey was about a man who laughed to hide his misery on account of the very tragedy of the condition humaine. Oxon, Oxon, sat you dreaming? Saw you not the punchline gleaming? The loftiness of your title would impress and intimidate any cringing fool. MA Oxon is undoubtedly an excellent qualification, but like a garden it must be tended in order that its state of perfection be maintained. And what better thing is there to restore the operative faculties of the mind, than humour, and an intelligent interpretation of its portent. As our prime of intellectual perfection declines with the degeneration of brain cells, our intellect must be continuously oiled like a machine to ensure the vital preservation of our brain cells. "They are dying, Oxon, dying." ****i2
I do so hope you will enjoy reading my Tell Us a Sick One, Jakey, Oxon, dear. No doubt you will warm to it in time. Who knows: my next book might be entitled "The Cow that came in from the Cold". Yours most sympathetically, Eleanor Berry BA HONS - not such a fancy qually, but a sharper brain, what! FOOTNOTES ****1 S'PEARE: DICKIII O X O N C O D E ****2 S'PEARE: ANT & CLEO O X O N C O D E
CURTIS BROWN 1 Craven Hill London W2 3EP Telephone 01-262 1011 30th June 1983 Ms Eleanor Berry Flat 21 151 Grosvenor Road London SW1
Dear Ms Berry, Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I am sorry that my letter of 30th June 1983 offended you. That was not at all my intention. With best wishes, Yours sincerely, (Signed Imogen Parker) Imogen Parker
Despite the witty, pungent boldness of Berry's letter to Imogen Parker, and its boastful tone, accompanied by an almost pathological urge to show off her literary knowledge, gained by a first-rate education, Berry used this lofty language steeped in Shakespearian quotations, to hide her melancholia and shame. She was already beginning to realize that Tell Us a Sick One, Jakey was a distasteful, ridiculous book, written in a hurried, slipshod manner. She referred to it as "a bastard, I once thought to be a sweet beloved babe." Very few readers and even Berry's friends and relatives, liked the book. Try as she did, she was unable to shake off her gloom. Even the Attorney General, Sir Michael Havers, described the book as being "quite repulsive." Her despair eventually lifted when her Irish uncle rang her up and uttered kindly words to her which melted her heart. "Would you be giving me a copy of Give Us a Filthy One, Ned?" The gesture caused her to have an adoring relationship with her uncle until his death. Berry forced herself to forget Tell Us a Sick One, Jakey. She subsequently wrote one book after another and has become a prolific writer. She has appeared several times on television and the radio. She specializes in black comedy and her books have been meticulously thought out before being polished up and made good. Her forthcoming book is called Stop the Car, Mr Becket! Berry originally wanted it to be called The Rendon Boy to the Grave is Gone and it appeared in a limited family and friends edition under that name. Several people bullied her into changing the title, on the grounds that it sounded too gloomy. Berry's Stop the Car, Mr Becket! which I have read and re-read in proof form, is profoundly funny and ennobling. In my opinion, it borders on sheer genius. Her main protagonist, Ian Rosen, (a publisher), is her ideal of what a sympathetic publisher should be like. If he considers manuscripts to be unfit he takes the trouble to suggest changes and invites the authors to send their corrected versions back to him for reconsideration. One of her subconscious motives for writing it may have been to contrast Ian Rosen with Imogen Parker and others of her ilk. She detests arrogant and dismissive literary agents with a vengeance and sees an unpublished book as a stillborn child. Her action of thrashing home Imogen Parker's exhibitionist flaunting of her qualification, shows her remarkable wit, courage, defiance and refusal to be crushed. It's a pity there aren't more women like Eleanor Berry.
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