NP. Happy Birthday, Robert Coover.

[matthew cissell]

Hi Mark,

First, it's not so much not paying the 10% surtax as the public statement
of refusal and related condemnation. The risk is not so much in terms of
IRS fines or jail as in other forms of payment for choosing a position.
Look at what happened to David Graeber.

Let me answer your question with a query: have you looked at who's not on
the list? 528 writers and editors signed, but many more did not. Maybe they
wouldn't lose their publishing contract; however, doors could be
shut, audiences alienated. Think of the Saturday Evening Post, where TP
and others had things published - not likely to print something from
pacifist ('anti-war') authors in 1968. And that is just the literary market
angle. Wider fear of The Man was real. (Did PKD have his place searched by
the Man or something else? Did the FBI have files on MLK jr. and John
Lennon? What happened to Fred Hampton?) "A paranoid is someone who knows a
little of what is going on." -Uncle Bill

However, your point about publicity is valid. Regarding the idea of "bad
press is good press", which worked for Joyce with "Ulysses", I would
recommend Alan Sorensen and Scott Rasmussen's "Is Any Publicity Good
Publicity? A Note on the Impact of Book Reviews.” They conclude that in
some cases even negative reviews can be beneficial to the author. But we
are not dealing with reviews here. Moreover, I don't think that Pynchon (or
other writers) were calculating to take the provocative social position in
order to boost exposure; courting controversy in one's writing is rather
different.

ciao
mc otis



<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
Libre
de virus. www.avast.com
<https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
<#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 12:33 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Matthew, thanks......I've sent it to Jerky and a few publishing
> folks...
>
> My only editor question of you is how risky in 1968, in liberal
> publishing, was it to refuse to pay this Vietnam War tax....I wasn't in
> publishing then--
> but I might bet it would not be too risky.....They pay you and you do with
> the money as you think right?....(Although if jail was really feared where
> one might not easily finish their work...)
>
>
> And it was publicity.....a few copies of V & Lot 49 and Brunists and
> Baseball Association novels  must have sold, right?
>
> On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 5:57 AM matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Howdy,
>>
>>     In 1968, Coover was one of the writers that signed the public letter
>> declaring their intention to refuse payment of the Viet Nam surtax. You can
>> imagine the environment and the risks (losing publisher, etc.) a person was
>> taking to put their name on that list; not everyone was willing to do so.
>> You know who else put their name on that list? Thomas Pynchon, Kirkpatrick
>> Sale, and even Philip K. Dick. Go check it out. Think about how that would
>> up your paranoia levels.
>>      For the soon to be ever less visible author, this was a very
>> important position-taking within the literary field and the wider social
>> field. Of course it makes sense, at the time he is working on GR.
>>
>> It seems that service in the Navy was as formative for Coover as it was
>> for Pynchon. Although older than TP by several years (but still the same
>> generation), he got into the literary game later. Very different
>> trajectories given their rather different backgrounds. Iowa is further away
>> from Long Island than the distance that separates them.
>>
>> ciao
>> mc otis
>>
>>
>> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Libre
>> de virus. www.avast.com
>> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
>> <#m_352789779160911971_m_4960610441838941512_m_-7761569404783881452_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
>>
>> On Sun, Feb 6, 2022 at 12:46 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> "There's no need to inundate the world with books and language. It's just
>>> too full already. There's so much rubbish hiding in the world. But as
>>> long
>>> as I think I can do something inventive and insightful, then I'll keep
>>> doing it." Happy 90th birthday to the great Robert Coover.
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>