at O’Connelly was well into his new novel with Jason Herzfeld was pressing
him to complete it whilst the crisis was still in the forefront of readers’
interests. It was for this reason Angela Steiner had invited the writer to her
offices, situated on rue de Rivoli, between the Louvre and place de la Concorde,
for a progress update followed by lunch.
Steiner, his literary agent, must have still been making money, O’Connelly
thought, as he admired the architecture, the rent alone must be costing her a
fortune. The handsome 18th century edifice had originally been built by the order
of Napoleon Bonaparte. But once inside Pat found himself in a modern office
building; all the remained of the original structure was its façade.
He took the lift to the fourth floor and made his way to Steiner’s office suite. She
was a New Yorker and had settled in France some years earlier. Together with
Henri Rubenstein, a Frenchman, they created their literary agency, handling, very
profitably, the sales and translation rights for American and British bestsellers for
the French market.
In 2009, few American writers chose Paris as a place of inspiration. The City of
Light was no longer what it had been; the glorious first half of the twentieth
century was ancient history. The Champs Elysee had become a shopping mall
where there was little that was very French: McDonalds and Abercrombie Fitch
jostled for a place with outlets such H&M and Sephora as well as a host of other
low market brands. The city, which had once been the incubator for budding
foreign writers and future literary prize winners, no longer existed, its cultural
landmarks were nothing more than tourist attractions. Joyce, Hemingway, Orwell
and Baldwin had long since slipped in history.
Henri Rubenstein handled relations with French publishers and a string of writers
P
amongst them a sprinkling of France’s professional penseurs, who were, in
O’Connelly’s opinion, regretfully taken too seriously, especially by themselves.
Angela managed the US end of their business.
O’Connelly, still bathing in the glow of his last success, got the red carpet
treatment with a warm embrace from Steiner and coffee quickly served by her
secretary.
‘So what’s new Angela?’
She laughed.
‘I was about to ask you the same question.’
‘Well Dublin’s fine and the book is progressing nicely.’
‘That’s good news. Jason will be pleased to hear that. He’s worried the crisis will
be over before the book gets onto the market.’
‘I wouldn’t count on that. The crisis has a long way to go before things get
better.’
‘You think it’s that bad?’
‘Absolutely, and it’s going to get much worse. Jason should know that, he’s just a
stone’s throw from Wall Street.’
‘Oh.’
Jason Hertzfeld was one of the senior partners at Bernstein Press, O’Connelly’s
New York publisher.
‘People are less worried about terrorists and all that. The things on their minds
today are property prices, job losses, rogue traders and banks.’
O’Connelly’s experience with Hertzfeld in Israel had brought him closer to the
publisher. The novel linked to the ongoing events in The Holy Land and Gaza had
made the top ten list of bestsellers. The novel, based on an adventure in
archaeology, was intertwined with the long drawn-out struggle between Israel and
the Palestinians, and contained a didactic synthesis of Middle Eastern complexities.
To his and his publishers satisfaction sales indicated the reading public’s
appreciation of the book.
‘As you know Pat, times are hard, and we think a literary prize would boost the
sales of your new book.’
‘Not as easy done as said,’ he said flattered at the thought.
‘Don’t worry about that, that’s our problem.’
‘Which one are you thinking of?’
‘Well there’s plenty of them about.’
‘I’ve never really understood how they choose a work.’
‘Our problem is the quantity of fiction works published each year, it’s really quite
astronomical.’ She flipped a trade magazine for reference. ‘Here,’ she said pointing
to an article, ‘twenty five thousand were published in the UK alone last year.’
O’Connelly showed his surprise.
‘One of the tricks is a series.’
He made a noncommittal shrug.
‘We thought your novel on the financial crisis could be split into three tomes. I
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don’t want to teach you how to suck eggs, but you know, part one ― a prologue
describing the events leading up to the crisis, part two ― the crisis breaks, the
drama unfolds, and three ― a happy ending,’ she said almost tongue in cheek,
adding with a laugh, ‘though not for the villains.’
‘A good old fashioned Greek tragedy,’ O’Connelly replied seriously. ‘Well I
suppose it’s at least in line with what’s happening.’
‘A trilogy, which would justify the scholarly aspect of a novel for the needs of a
selection committee, not only that, it would also build up your readership.’
‘Fine.’
‘Right. Just look at the profits of Random House, they’ve shot up thanks to their
successful trilogies.’
O’Connelly nodded; he did not follow the business results of publishing houses.
‘Profits matter Pat. I don’t have to remind you the days of gentlemen publishers
have gone. Today all that counts is sales and sales need publicity.’
‘Of course.’
‘That’s why prizes matter. There’s a whole stack of them out there, in the States
there’s the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and in the UK there’s the
Sunday Times Literary Award, the Booker prize, South Bank Show, WH Smith
and Orange.’
‘So what have you got in mind?’
‘That’s up to Jason, it’s his business to do the horse trading.
On the other side of the Atlantic things were looking up ― at least for certain
banks. One could have asked if banks were chastened by the greatest financial
crisis in a century. It did not seem so, at least as far as Goldman Sachs was
concerned. The bank was set to be paying record bonuses, and just as the rally in
global equities weakened on the news of worse than expected business results. The
very same bonus culture that had brought the world’s banking system to the brink
of collapse was very much alive and kicking. After the government bailout it was
back to business as usual for bankers in New York and London as they set about
stuffing their pockets again, at the moment unemployment in the US was heading
for the ten percent mark and Arnold Schwarzenegger was forced to pay California
state employees with IOUs.
As government regulators were closing down troubled banks across the US,
Goldman Sachs declared first quarter profits of almost twenty billion dollars. With
its thirty thousand employees that made an average remuneration of seven hundred
thousand dollars per person. The question was where did this money come from?
Profits they said. But profits on what? The disappearance of certain of its
competitors was no doubt something to do with the change of fortune as was an
increase in earnings on Forex and trading. What was more to the point was whether
the bank was profiting from the federal relief programme or not?
Admittedly Goldman Sachs had paid back the ten billion dollars it had received
under the TARP program, financed by American tax payers, the vast majority of
whom could only dream of such fabulous bonuses. It was the same story at Morgan
Stanley, and on the other side of the Atlantic where British and European banks
were in the black again. Incredibly, it was as if the disastrous events of the
previous two years had never happened.
Did bankers feel responsible for the crisis they had provoked? Maybe, maybe not.
But the rise in the number of gun permits taken out by New York bankers seemed
to indicate they felt a need to protect themselves from the thousands of angry
citizens who inundated the web with ominous threats. For many of those who had
profited during the heady years of roaring profits and bonuses, the idea that lynch
mobs were about to storm their Wall Street fortresses or their chateaux in
Connecticut had begun to seem more and more real.