Introduction:

‘Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip’  was Charles Bukowski’s first published story… Robert Pirsig claimed to have accumulated 103 rejection slips before his masterwork, ‘Zen and Motorcycle Maintenance’, was accepted… Much more intimidating was the boast of Truman Capote that he “never had a rejection slip.”

I have no presumption of comparing my experience to that of these three literary notables. Still,  I confess that hopes of trying my hand at fiction again were shattered by the fistful of rejection slips attracted by my only attempted novel.  

The few times over the last quarter century that I have looked at the rejected manuscript–– I found it no less cringe-worthy. The plot hardly moves and the style is ponderous. I am baffled why I had such hopes for it. It was essentially shit…  

Yet a review of journal notes from the time of its writing in the early 1990s led me to believe that the backstory of that midwifed monstrosity may be more readable than the doomed manuscript was able to be. 

The following is a  chronicle of the creation of that monstrosity and the lingering impact of its failure in the months and years afterwards…

Names of identifiable persons, publishers–– even the title of the manuscript itself–– have been fictionalized.  No disrespect or dishonour is intended to any among the potentially identifiable. 

Finally, my apologies for any perceived excess of self-flagellation or paranoia… 

–FWT (lefthook51)

–2020, December

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