My "new"
novel is called David Sunshine and it
was inspired by my early experiences in the television industry. It includes incidents that are completely
true, down to the dialogue, that were so funny I have been dining out on them
for years. At the time I took David
Sunshine directly to a publisher who signed me up and gave me what in those
days was a princely advance. Then backed out of the deal (as they will). At
this point, literary agents descended on me but none could get a nibble
elsewhere (as they won't).
The book was a roman de clef and word came back that
publishers were afraid of being sued. ("This is a dangerous book,"
one anonymous editor had penciled in a margin.) Since all the stories in it were true, I
thought we were pretty safe, but no one wanted to chance it. So I put the manuscript
away, dusted it off a few months ago and thought that kid who had written it
way back then (me) was pretty good. So, because of that and some recent popular
interest in 1960s things like “Mad Men” I decided to have it published myself,
though a piece of contemporary fiction had now aged into a piece of historical
fiction.
As to why I decided
it was worthwhile even though it is no longer the expose it once was (all those
potential litigants are gone and none of their progeny have even hinted at
litigation) is that it is serious literature with a light touch, not unlike
Dickens or Mark Twain, and that it concerns itself with the on-going drama of
the pursuit of the American Dream which has been with us in novels from The Great Gatsby to The Day of the
Locust to All the King’s Men.
Specifically,
television at that time seemed at a crossroads. To oversimplify, it could be a
force for enlightenment or a craven money machine. David Sunshine is about a fraud and admitted con man who masqueraded
as a Philosopher King. At the time, the character upon whom he was based was a media darling, Thus the fear
of being sued but, much more likely, I think, the fear of going against the
common wisdom – by which I mean the trendy snobbery of the season. It was not
the usual kind of sordid expose – it simply exposed him to ridicule. Kiss and
tell without much of a kiss.
There is more to the
book, of course; primarily about what it was like in those days to be a part of
the television industry as the sun had set on its Golden Age and the dawn was
beginning to come up over the Vast Wasteland. There was a human cost and many a
well-intentioned kid would be ground into bite-sized pieces. However, for all
that, the most memorable moments in the book are probably still the funniest
ones.
