The Architecture of Snow (The David Morrell Short Fiction Collection #4) by David Morrell Page A

Eventual recipients of Pulitzer Prizes, these were buried in piles of unsolicited manuscripts that Carver loved to search through.”
    Ten mourners. Many of the authors Carver had championed were dead. Others had progressed to huge advances at bigger publishers and seemed to have forgotten their debt to him. A few retired editors paid their respects. Publishers Weekly sent someone who took a few notes. Carver’s wife had died seven years earlier. The couple hadn’t been able to have children. The church echoed coldly. So much for being a legend.
    The official explanation was that Carver stumbled in front of the bus, but I had no doubt that he committed suicide. Despite my praise about the past five decades, he hadn’t been a creative presence since his wife’s death. Age, ill health, and grief wore him down. At the same time, the book business changed so drastically that his instincts didn’t fit. He was a lover of long shots, with the patience to give talent a chance to develop. But in the profit-obsessed climate of modern publishing, manuscripts needed to survive the focus groups of the marketing department. If the books weren’t easily promotable, they didn’t get accepted. For the past seven years, George March, the grandson of the company’s founder, loyally postponed forcing Carver into retirement, paying him a token amount to come to the office two days a week. The elderly gentleman had a desk in a corner where he studied unsolicited manuscripts. He also functioned as a corporate memory, although it was hard to imagine how stories about the good-old days could help an editor survive in contemporary publishing. Not that it mattered—I was one of the few who asked him anything.
    Eventually, March & Sons succumbed to a conglomerate. Gladstone International hoped to strengthen its film-and-broadcast division by acquiring a publisher and ordering it to focus on novels suited for movies and television series. The trade buzzword for this is “synergy.” As usual when a conglomerate takes over a business, the first thing the new owner did was downsize the staff, and Carver was an obvious target for elimination. Maybe he’d felt that his former contributions made him immune. That would account for his stunned reaction when he came to work that Monday morning and received the bad news.
    “What am I going to do?” the old man murmured. His liver-spotted hands shook as he packed framed photographs of his wife and of authors he’d discovered into a flimsy box. “How will I manage? How will I fill the time?”
    Evidently, he’d decided that he wouldn’t. The box in one hand, his umbrella in the other, he went outside and let the bus solve his problems.
    Because Carver and I seemed to be friends, the new CEO put me in charge of whatever projects Carver was trying to develop. Mostly, that meant sending a few polite rejection letters. Also, I removed some items Carver forgot in his desk drawer: cough drops, chewing gum, and a packet of Kleenex.
     
    * * *
     
    “Mr. Neal?”
    “Mmmm?” I glanced up from one of the hundreds of emails I received each day.
    My assistant stood in my office doorway. His black turtleneck, black pants, and black sports coat gave him the appearance of authority. Young, tall, thin, and ambitious, he held a book mailer. “This arrived for Mr. Carver. No return address. Should I handle it for you?”
    In theory, it was an innocent suggestion. But in the new corporate climate, I doubted there was any such thing as an innocent suggestion. When my assistant offered to take one of my duties, I wondered if it was the first step in assuming all of my duties. After Carver was fired, three other editors, each over 50, received termination notices. I’m 46. My assistant keeps calling me Mr. Neal, even though I’ve asked him to call me Tom. “Mister” isn’t only a term of respect—it’s also a way of depersonalizing the competition.
    “Thanks, but I’ll take care of it.”
    Determined to