Ten Years in the Tub (126 page)

BOOKS READ
:

     
  
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter—
Tom Franklin

     
  
Dare Me—
Megan Abbott

     
  
Something Like the Gods: A Cultural History of the Athlete from Achilles to LeBron—
Stephen Amidon

     
  
Brother of the More Famous Jack—
Barbara Trapido

     
  
Don't Eat Cat—
Jess Walter

H
ow are writers going to make a living in ten, twenty, fifty years' time? If you're a writer (or a publisher, or an agent, or a critic, or maybe even a reader), then this question may have occurred to you. Conversations I've been having with people recently, people whose job it is to try and make sense of what's happening out there, are alarming: bookstores are closing all over the place, and even the big chains are unlikely to survive in their current form for much longer; publishers are slashing advances; books by first-time authors that don't sell in hardback are being offered an extended life in e-book rather than in paperback. Nobody knows how long our current publishing culture will last, but some very clever observers foresee profound change over the next five years, leaving us with very little that any of us, however old we are, will be able to recognize. The work of art that I keep thinking about in relation to
all this is the 1951 Ealing Studios comedy
The Man in the White Suit
, starring Alec Guinness. Guinness plays a man who invents a material that never wears out and never gets dirty, to the horror of both the textile manufacturers and the unions. I haven't seen the movie for a long time, but I seem to recall that we're supposed to side with Guinness's character, the little man who's invented something for the benefit of humankind, and who has to battle the dark forces of vested interest. It's hard to see it that way now, though, if you work in books or music or movies or TV. I now support the dark forces of vested interest. Yes, digitization has brought us convenience and portability and access, and saved us billions, because music and TV and films and, one day soon, books, are all free. But even so, I wish we'd at least talked about arresting the people who invented it, and maybe pulling out their tongues and cutting off their hands. I mean, I would have been against it, on balance. But I'd have listened carefully to the arguments from the other side.

When I try to talk about any of this stuff with those who love books, however, the dialogue becomes very frustrating very quickly.

            
ME: It's pretty worrying, all this iPad and Kindle stuff.

            
NICE BOOK LOVER: Why?

            
ME: It's not just the physical book that's under threat. Have you been on a plane or a train recently? Nobody's reading at all, in any form. They're all watching screens.

            
NBL: Oh, I love books.

            
ME: Yeah, I know, but…

            
NBL: There's nothing like the experience of being immersed in fiction.

            
ME: I agree, but…

            
NBL: And I could never switch to a Kindle. I love the smell of a new book. The feel of it. I like to know where I am in a book, and…

            
ME: I know you do, but…

            
NBL: Plus, I love my local independent bookstore. The people there are so knowledgeable, and they recommend things that they know I'll—

            
ME:
Yes, but there are only seventy-three of you in the entire country! You're fifty years old! Your kids don't even know which way up they should hold a book!
The only reason people ever used to read in the first place was because they had nothing else to do, and now they have a million things to do, even in a dentist's waiting room! Will you shut the fuck up about you
?

            
NBL: I think you should go home now. You're upsetting the other dinner guests.