The Underachiever

I wrote my first two books fighting the liberality of my graphomania by imitating writers with a simple prose line, though I was mediocre at that too. Lyrical, convoluted, and often incomprehensible sentences belie my determination to keep my prose lucid. I was stunned when the editor at Nord Dam, a leading avantgarde publishing house, accepted my first manuscript. Knowing him beforehand undoubtedly played a role-as is the incestuous way of the literary world-but he could have easily dismissed my first, feeble efforts to become a published novelist from the outset.