Relentless

“What stuff?”

“Most stuff.”

“So if you didn’t read the review, why did you google him?”

“It was Lassie’s idea.”

The dog turned her head to look back and up at me.

“Shearman Waxx is an enema,” Milo informed me.

As I gently rubbed my thumbs behind Lassie’s ears, I said, “While that may be true, it’s not a nice thing to say.”

“Wasn’t me who said it.”

Milo’s small hands moved cat-quick from mouse to keyboard to mouse. He bailed from the current website and went to an online encyclopedia, to the biographical entry on Shearman Waxx.

Leaning over my son, I read aloud the first sentence on the screen: “‘Shearman Thorndike Waxx, award-winning critic and author of three enormously successful college textbooks on creative writing, is something of an enema.’”

Milo said, “See?”

“It’s an error,” I explained. “They meant to write enigma”

“Enigma? I know what that is.”

“A mystery, something obscure and puzzling.”

“Yeah. Like Grandma Clotilda.”

I continued reading: “‘Waxx declines honorary doctorates and other awards requiring his attendance at any pubic event.’”

“What’s a pubic event?” Milo asked.

“The word should be public.” Scanning the screen, I said, “According to this, there’s only one known photograph of Waxx.”

“He’s really, really old,” said Milo.

“He is? How old?”

“He was born in 1868.”

“They probably mean 1968.”

“Do real-book ’cyclopedias make so many mistakes?”

“No.”

“Could we buy a real-book ’cyclopedia?”

“Absolutely.”

“So when will we get Waxx?” Milo asked.

“What do you mean—get him?”

“Vengeance,” Milo said, and Lassie growled softly. “When will we make him sorry he messed with you, Dad?”

Dismayed that Milo could read my anger so clearly and that it inspired him to talk of vengeance, I moved from behind his chair to his side, and with the mouse I clicked out of the encyclopedia.

“Revenge isn’t a good thing, Milo.” I switched off the computer. “Besides, Mr. Waxx was only doing what he’s paid to do.”

“What is he paid to do?”

“Read a book and tell his audience whether he liked it or not.”

“Can’t his audience read?”

“Yes, but they’re busy, and they have so many books to choose from, so they trust his judgment.”

“Why do they trust his judgment?”

“I have no idea.”

The phone on my desk rang. The third line.

When I answered, Hud Jacklight, my literary agent, said, “The Waxx review. Great thing. You’ve arrived, Cubster.”

“What do you mean—I’ve arrived? Hud, he gutted me.”

Milo rolled his eyes and whispered to Lassie, “It’s the Honker.”

Because he doesn’t understand children, Hud thinks they love it when he pinches their noses—their ears, their chins—while making a loud honking noise.

“Doesn’t matter,” Hud assured me. “It’s a Waxx review. You’ve arrived. He takes you seriously. That’s big.”

Breaking her characteristic silence, Lassie issued a low growl while staring at the phone in my hand.

“Hud,” I said, “apparently he didn’t even read the book.”

“Irrelevant. It’s coverage. Coverage sells. You’re a Waxx author now. That matters. A Waxx author. That’s huge.”

Although Hud pretends to read each of my novels, I know that he has never read any of them. He praises them without mentioning a plot point or a character.

Sometimes he selects a manuscript page at random and raves about the writing in a sentence or a paragraph. He reads it aloud over the telephone, as if my prose will sound fresh and limpid and magical to me by virtue of being delivered in his insistent cadences, but his voice is less that of a Shakespearean actor than that of a livestock auctioneer. By emphasizing the wrong words, he often reveals that he has no understanding of the context of the passage with which he has chosen to hector me.

“A Waxx author. Proud of you, Cubman. Celebrate tonight. You earned it.”

“This is nothing to celebrate, Hud.”