Letters

Thanks to Karl Grossman for his tribute obituary of Martin Shepard in last week’s edition [“Martin Shepard Of The Permanent Press Has Died,” Arts & Living, January 14]. I’ve had a number of books published over the years, but the very first book contract I signed was given to me by the Permanent Press, owned by Marty and his wife, Judith.

It was thanks to volleyball, of all things, that I met Marty.

New to the area in 1982, I learned of an informal volleyball game held a couple of evenings a week at the East Hampton Middle School. Among the players who accepted my awkward gyrations on the court was Marty. I enjoyed his wry sense of humor, and even more that he was a book publisher. He was mildly intrigued that I was a writer, or at least was trying to get ahead as one.

A day came where I visited Marty at his home and office on Noyac Road, and he suggested I write a mystery novel based on an idea he had, and he would pay me a $500 advance. I signed the contract as soon as the ink was dry — and it was then I learned that an “advance” is not actually paid in advance: I would receive $250 up front and the rest when I turned the manuscript in.

I have no recollection what Marty’s idea was, and it doesn’t matter, because I ignored it and spent several months banging out a thriller about a writer slowly losing his mind during a long winter and bumping off people around him, and, finally, it’s his wife’s turn, and to hide his crime he torches their home and flees, but is caught. (During this month, my wife kept sharp utensils handy.) I shamelessly (and probably illegally) titled it “Burning Down the House,” and, knowing this act would begin my journey to the Nobel Prize, I gave Marty the manuscript.

Thankfully, he never published it. To his dying day, Marty likely regretted giving me $250 and felt relief that he did not give me the second $250.

Over the years, I’ve thought very highly of Marty and Judith and their heroic efforts to publish quality writing, which they obviously recognized better than I did. His death is a loss to an industry and a world where independence still matters.

Tom Clavin

Noyac