Experiment Perilous: The 'Bug Jack Barron' Papers by Norman Spinrad

Author:Norman Spinrad
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: XXXXXXXX
Publisher: ReAnimus Press
Published: 2012-11-21T16:52:47.250000+00:00

“Dedicated to:

LAWRENCE P. ASHMEAD Prince Of Editors.”

So it really blew my mind when Larry Ashmead rejected the book. It would be pointless to try to enumerate the changes my feelings went through; better to sum up the place I came to after I had spoken to Larry months later, in New York, after the Milford Conference had put together the pieces of my shattered self-confidence.

Larry Ashmead loathed the book, there was no escaping the fact. He hadn’t understood what I was trying to do; he was as certain and sincere in his subjective opinion that it was a bad book as I was in mine that it was a good book. Neither of us would ever convince the other. I was (and am) certain that he made a serious mistake. Larry’s rejection of Bug Jack Barron was to result in a year of frustration and writing block for me and I would be less than honest if I did not admit that I felt hurt and confused and more than a little resentful. Because of what I still consider Larry’s honest error, I had an unsold book on my hands, a book that I considered a quantum-jump upwards for me.

And yet, I had to acknowledge the fact that if it hadn’t been for Larry Ashmead, that book would never have been written. It is still difficult for me to come to terms with this paradox. I owe Larry Ashmead the book as it was written, and from my point of view, that is a heavy freight of gratitude. But Larry rejected the book he had enabled me to write. Every boost of the book has, by the inescapable dynamics of the situation, become an indirect rebuke to Larry for rejecting it. That is the exact opposite of what I had intended when I wrote that dedication page. If the book is a good one, Larry deserves as much credit for enabling it to be written as he does deprecation for not publishing it. Two things seem to be involved: taste and judgment. One cannot argue with a man’s taste; if he doesn’t like a book, you can’t convince him that he does. Judgment is another matter. Larry judged the book to be “unpublishable” in its original form as far as he was concerned. Subsequent events would seem to have proven this judgment to be questionable. The book was serialized in New Worlds and taken by Avon Books with a specific provision in the contract that it would be published in its original form. So, objectively, an error in judgment on Larry’s part. And a disagreement in taste between Larry and myself. But although this particular decision of Larry Ashmead’s cost me dearly, and although it would seem to be an error, I still believe that he is one of the finest editors in the SF field, one whose serious intent elicits from writers their best books, and a man of integrity. To complete the paradox, Bug Jack Barron, though he did reject it, stands as a tribute to the sense of artistic freedom he instills in his writers.

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