January 1975

All things change—except writer-editor relationships!

by Barry Malzberg

Dear Ben:

I’ve come up with a series idea which I think is first-rate and would like to query you on it. Hopefully you’ll give me the green light and let me get started right away. I think that this series is literally inexhaustible; I could do one a month for years and years; on the other hand if you want it to be somewhat less than limitless it could be cut off anywhere. I am nothing if not cooperative. And the stipend would come in handy.

Here is the idea: I would like to do an alternate universe series set in a parallel world where, get this, Kennedy was elected in 1960. After three years of off-again, on-again confrontations in foreign policy he seemed to have things pretty well in hand when he was assassinated in late 1963. Lyndon B. Johnson (do you remember him?) becomes President and we go on from there. As you can see, this is one of those irresistible ideas which I can hardly see you turning back. The 1960 election was one of those great pivotal points of the century; I have a theory that once every couple of decades there occurs a public event whose alternatives are visible, well-articulated and real (as opposed to the illusory nature of most public events, a majority of seeming “choices”), and that election seems to be one of them. If you don’t believe this, wait until you see what I do with the series! Looking forward eagerly to word from you.

Barry

Dear Ben:

Sorry you don’t find the idea as exciting as I do. You ask, “Why must Kennedy be assassinated?” finding this a little melodramatic. Is it necessary, you ask, to compound an alternate universe with heightened improbability? Good question for an editor as distinguished as yourself, but I am sorry that you do not find the answer as obvious as I do.

If Kennedy had won the election of 1960, his assassination somewhere around the thousandth day of his administration would have been inevitable! If you doubt this, wait until the series starts reaching your desk, piece by piece, and all will become clear. Out of that single branching time-track I believe that I am writer enough to construct an inevitability. Won’t you give me a chance? Also I can get into the multiple assassinations which followed, and the riots.

Barry

Dear Ben:

Well, obviously a Presidential assassination would be highly dislocating, cutting as it does to the heart of public myths and folklore, based as they are on the relative benignity of the perceived social systems. I would think that would be obvious! Also, modern technology would, you can be assured, bring the assassination and its consequences into the living rooms and common lives of the nation and when you think about it, a good many alienated types might decide to become operative assassins themselves. Don’t you think so?

I disagree with your suggestion that the series would be “monolithic and depressing” or “not credible” to the readership at large.

You misevaluate my technical range if you do not think that I can keep the tone of the stories essentially cheerful and amusing although, of course, there will be a serious undertone as is common in the dystopian mode. As far as the issue of credibility, all times appear bizarre to those enmeshed in them; it is only history which induces a frame of reference, or have you not been reading the newspapers recently? Your final objection concerning libel is not at all germane; I can assure you that the portrait of Kennedy as President will be uplifting and noble and no one, least of all the Secretary, could possibly object to it!

Barry

Dear Ben:

Well, I think that’s an unfeeling response and shows a shocking lack of faith. However I will not take this personally; we’ll let the union argue it out. I .am truly sorry that you have taken this insulting tone; even a marginal contributor is entitled to common courtesy, I thought. Rest assured that it will be a long time before you will see me again at the Slaughter Games where, I remind you, you were so convivial, and where the solicitation of further manuscripts came from your lips. I should have known that you couldn’t behave sensibly while enjoying the Public Tortures.

Barry

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