There is a recognizable arc to the type of literary career that most interested the public in the days when art was king, and books and magazines were primary means of distributing new fashions, fads, and ideas. First, a blaze of youthful fame, which contained equal portions of originality, promise, and messiness/failure. Second, the construction of a persona around the work, one that could be drawn with clear-enough cartoonlike lines to launch a recognizable character. Third, the deployment of that character in public controversies and soap operas, through the manipulative efforts of bored editors and needy feature writers, with the connivance of the author himself or herself. Fourth, the use of the public stage to launch works that might appeal to a large, global audience, and whose success or failure would themselves create a kind of news; draw attention to a new style, fad, or cause; or possibly launch a television series or an Oscar-winning film from Miramax. Fifth, death by drug overdose, or heart attack, or diabetes, or marriage to a famous musician, guru, movie star, or chef; those who survive this passage can look forward to the cratering of their inflated reputations under the accumulated weight of negative reviews generated by decades of extra-literary distraction, or by the resentments of their less talented peers. Sixth, the realization, impelled by surviving one of the preceding events, that life is short, that all that really matters is the work on the page; for good or for ill, the years spent moving through stages 1-5 of the fame cycle are gone forever. Seventh, a redevotion to the art of one’s youth, which is either made deeper or more complicated and difficult by the fact that one is no longer young or even recognizably the same person. Eighth, death, followed by disappearance from the shelves of all but the most remote bookstores and libraries while awaiting the final judgment of the Gods.
