The Great American Novel by Philip Roth Read Free Book Online Page B

compose the story in bits and half-bits, which accounts for why it is so weak on alliteration. As it says over the door to the Famous Writers’ School in Connecticut: A Sullen Drunk Packing A Gat Is Not The Best Company For An Artist Finicky About His Style.
    I read the story aloud to the telegraph operator, so I could balance up the sentences as I went along, writing the last paragraph right there on my feet in the Western Union office.
    Then I turned to see Hem pointing the pistol at my belt.
    â€œYou stole that from me.”
    â€œStole what, Hem?”
    â€œFirst you steal it and then what’s worse you fuck it up.”
    â€œFuck what up, Hem?”
    â€œMy prose style. You bastards have stolen my prose style. Every shithead sportswriter in America has stolen my style and then gone and fucked it up so bad that I can’t even use it anymore without becoming sick to my stomach.”
    â€œPut down the pistol, Papa. I’ve been writing that way all my life and you know it.”
    â€œI suppose I stole it from you then, Frederico.”
    â€œThat isn’t what I said.”
    â€œHear that, bright boy?” Hem said to the baby-faced telegraph operator, who had his hands over his head. “That isn’t what he said. Tell the bright boy who I steal my ideas from, Frederico.”
    â€œNobody, Hem.”
    â€œDon’t I steal them from a syndicated sportswriter in a hound’s-tooth overcoat? Fella name a’ Frederico?”
    â€œNo, Hem.”
    â€œMaybe I steal them from the slit, Frederico. Maybe I steal them from a Vassar slit with a degree in High Literatoor,”
    â€œThey’re your own, Hem. Your ideas are your own.”
    â€œHow about my characters. Tell bright boy here who I steal them from. Go ahead. Tell him.”
    â€œHe doesn’t steal them from anybody,” I said to the kid. “They’re his own.”
    â€œHear that, bright boy?” Hem asked. “My characters are my own.”
    â€œYes, sir,” said the telegraph operator.
    â€œNow tell bright boy,” Hem said to me, “who is going to write the Great American Novel, Frederico? You? Or Papa?”
    â€œPapa,” I said.
    â€œYes, sir,” said the telegraph operator, his hands still up in the air.
    â€œSo you think that’s right?” Hem asked him.
    â€œSure,” the telegraph operator said.
    â€œYou’re a pretty bright boy, aren’t you?”
    â€œIf you say so, sir.”
    â€œYou know what I say, bright boy? If I have a message, I send it Western Union.”
    The telegraph operator forced a smile. “Uh-huh,” he said.
    â€œSit down, bright boy.”
    â€œYes, sir.” And did as he was told.
    Hem walked up and held the pistol to the telegrapher’s jawbone. “To Messrs. Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and James, in care of the Department of Literatoor, Vassar College, New York. Dear Illustrious Dead : The Great American Novelist, c’est moi. Signed, Papa.”
    He waited for the last letter to be tapped out, then he turned and went out the door. Through the window I watched him pass under the arc-light and cross the street. Then because I am something of a prick too, I asked how much the telegram would cost, paid, and went on back to my slitless hotel room, never to see Ernest again.
    Every once in a while I would get a Christmas card from Hem, sometimes from Africa, sometimes from Switzerland or Idaho, written in his cups obviously, saying more or less the same thing each time : use my style one more time, Frederico, and I’ll kill you. But of course in the end the guy Hem killed for using his style was himself.
    M Y P RECURSORS , M Y K INSMEN
1. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
    Well, I tend to agree with Hem—having now done my homework—that the men Miss Hester Prynne got herself mixed up with do not reflect admirably upon the bearded sex. But then make me out a list of a hundred