THE COLD OPEN
Not to be maudlin, but there will come a time when you think more about death than sex. That it hasn’t happened to me yet is something of a surprise, given the trajectory of my life and friendships I have maintained, especially with many of those friends now elders.
***
On a recent trip to New York, I met one of those friends for dinner. I arrived at the restaurant to find him seated at our table, in conversation with the maître d’. Introductions were made, pleasantries exchanged. Then I sat down.
I want you to speak at my funeral.
That was his cold open. Not hello. Not how are you? Not good to see you. Just that. Death.
Are you sick?
No. BEAT. I mean, yes, I’m sick, but nothing terminal. BEAT. Yet.
Should I be worried?
No. I’m fine. Old, but fine.
I won’t have anything nice to say.
That’s why I want you there. I need you as a truth teller.
OK. BEAT. Do you want to see my comments?
I’ll be dead.
I mean, should I start drafting them now for you to review?
No. Wait. I still have plans. Something could happen. I want your assessment to be complete. BEAT. How would you open?
That a man could live as long as xxx has and keep the fact that he was gay a secret is a minor miracle.
That’s good. That’s funny. People will laugh. BEAT. But you will have kind things to say, too?
Of course. BEAT. I’ll lie about everything.
Perfect. I’ll annotate my will accordingly.
***
Whenever I come to New York, I make a point of getting together with one or two writers I know. Some I work with, some I advise on the side, and some are friends dating back to my years at Knopf. At a recent lunch with one of those writers, the conversation turned to Sonny.
***
I didn’t know him well.
He was a great admirer of yours.
I knew him well enough to know that much. BEAT. He used to invite me up to to his apartment. Not frequently, but enough to make me feel special. We would have long talks about books. I was always struck by how well-read he was. BEAT. He loved Trollope.
Yeah. Well. He read a lot.
Yes. BEAT. You know what else struck me about him?
What?
He was alone.
In what sense?
In the literal sense. Whenever I visited, he was by himself. I think that’s why he invited me over. To not be alone. BEAT. I think Sonny was a lonely man.
***
I have known a fair number of men who spent a lot of their time alone. My father spent the last 35 years of his life alone. In his instance – and in Sonny’s too – their capture of loneliness was not by design. My mother died young. That was pretty much it for my dad and companionship. In Sonny’s case, Gita wasn’t around all that much and people would come to his flat in her absence.
For some, the notion of his being lonely may sound a bit off. I mean, whenever he was out in the world, he was something of a center. Writers gravitated towards him. They wanted to be in his aura (writers are like that, always moving towards the sun).
***
Editors, too, would gravitate towards Sonny. I always enjoyed Sonny talking about the role of an editor:
People sometimes forget that Sonny was funny.
***
I went to his flat occasionally. I didn’t think about Sonny being lonely when I was there. Many writers came to Sonny’s flat. Publishing colleagues, too. And when he wasn’t home, he would be out and about with those same colleagues. At the opera. Or the theatre. Or out to dinner (his notebooks are principally comprised of calendar dates). But what this writer said to me makes sense now. Because when morning came and he woke, Sonny would be alone.
***
I know that people in committed relationships can feel lonely, too. I have seen evidence of this. And people have said things to me about feeling lonely.
It’s like I’m not even there.
He loves you.
He barely acknowledges me.
He talks about you all the time.
What does he say?
BEAT.
You’re lying for him.
No, no, it’s not that. We mostly talk about guy stuff.
Sex?
Sometimes. BEAT. OK. Most of the time.
I’m surprised there’s anything to talk about on that front.
***
Some are comfortable being alone. I am. And maybe Sonny was one of those people, too.
***
I met another friend for coffee. We hadn’t seen each other in a while. We were catching up on our lives. It was an enjoyable conversation. And then this:
Would you speak at my funeral? BEAT. I’m sorry. I can see this has taken you by surprise.
No, no. It’s not that. It’s just that someone else asked me to do this.
To speak at my funeral?
No. To speak at his funeral.
Well, you’re very popular, aren’t you?
***
I spoke at my father’s funeral at St. Peter of Alcantara in Port Washington. They didn’t invite me back to church after that. Maybe I need to pay more attention to what I say when speaking in public.
***
Though Substack is a form of public speaking, no? And you can all see how that’s going…
***
I spoke at a sales conference in Sanibel. I was asked to present a service award to a colleague. They didn’t invite me to give any more service awards after that.
A former colleague (she/her) reminded me of this recently:
Do you remember the comments you made at sales conference?
Which comments?
The anniversary toast.
No.
People still talk about that.
In a good way?
No. In a how the fuck didn’t he get fired way. BEAT. Some found your comments objectionable.
Did you?
A little. BEAT. “xxx’s first wife was a mulligan.” Who says that at a company event?
I guess I do. Did.
And then, “He went scouting for a second wife at Mons Venus.”
BEAT.
I vaguely remember that reference.
You said it was a famous strip joint in Tampa.
It is.
And that it was a bucket list stop for golfers.
Also true.
And then you said, “It’s an unusual strip club in that all the women are naked from the jump, and not the first place one goes shopping for a wife.”
I can see how some would find that objectionable.
I’m glad.
But to be clear: I wasn’t the one shopping for a wife.
But you were there.
I was.
Enough said.
***
I remember a colleague from Random House who drank quite a bit (this could be anyone back in the day). He was from the south and did wonderful impressions of farm animals when he was drunk. Some people found his impressions objectionable. Lewd. Reminiscent of Deliverance. I thought they were very good. Exacting. He learned about a colleague who didn’t like his impressions and said something to their manager about it. To get even, he recorded his voice on their computer, embedding the recording in a random file so that every time they opened it, they would hear loud grunting, snorting, and squealing.
***
This person went on to enjoy a very successful career in publishing.
***
I remember another colleague – also a southerner – who grabbed a television set from the hospitality suite and jumped into the pool with it.
***
I remember, principally, that there was a lot of fucking that went on at sales conference. You would be walking back from the hospitality suite and hear carnal moaning as you walked past the casitas. I’m not sure when it all ended, or why people stopped.
And yes, I understand the world has evolved beyond promiscuous, infidelitous, sales conference sex, and that office libidos have been tamed, too. And these are all good things for the walking dead. But the downside is that there is so little to talk about now. Office gossip has been desiccated. Now, all anyone talks about is AI.
***
I read recently about a Fortune editor who has written 600 pieces using AI, and that AI-assisted stories accounted for nearly 20% of Fortune’s web traffic in the second half of 2025. I read this story the morning Robert Caro was taping a segment with Peter Slen for C-Span. The incongruity of A (Fortune + AI) and B (Caro + C-Span) was striking.
***
I am in the room for all of Mr. Caro’s interviews. I often take notes. This was one of the comments I noted during his conversation with Slen:
“Slow is good. And I am slow. No one could be slower than me.”
You can see Mr. Caro say it himself when the segment is broadcast next month (I am tempted to write to Morgan and Jonny and suggest they put his quote on a Lit Hub tote bag).
***
Another reporter wrote to me during my recent stay in New York, complaining about the state of journalism, missing what it had once been (of course, she would write to me about this, nostalgist that I am). And it wasn’t so much the decimation of outlets that ticked her off, but instead how editors were responding to reader mail (email), caving to their suggestions.
It sounds a lot like book publishing, I wrote back.
Then she sent me this song:
***
I didn’t speak at Sonny’s memorial service. And I never took him to a strip club. But I remember him asking me about Mons Venus in the wake of my comments at sales conference.
Is it real?
Very.
In Tampa?
Yes.
Everything comes off?
Everything.
Sonny just smiled and took a long drag on his cigarette.
***
I remember being on the road with Anne Rice in Atlanta and taking her to dinner and then her asking me what I was doing after dinner because this was back in the day when you were always doing something after dinner and I told her I was going to a strip club with one of the sales reps who was famous for wearing white shoes and that I really had no choice but to accompany him because it was his way of showing a northerner some southern hospitality. She asked if she could come. I said I didn’t think that would be wise because it didn’t strike me as the kind of establishment where people drank Tab. She laughed.
***
I had several authors say to me during my in-house career that I was not a very good escort. I can confirm that.
***
I still think about the author who wanted (demanded) a milk bath. For her skin.
***
Once, in Las Vegas, at ABA, the old bookseller’s convention, I went to play blackjack after my day on the show floor had concluded. I was having quite a run at the table. A woman sidled up to me during my streak. She was beautiful. We started talking. Not much, because I was focused on the cards, but enough for me to see that she was paying attention. I kept winning. I thought she was just being friendly, which she was. “I’m your good luck charm,” she said, smiling. I did not recognize that her friendliness was transactional (the dealer tipped me off). “What are you gonna do with all that money?” she said. “Spend it on you,” I replied.
***
I gave the dealer a big tip at the end of the night. The woman wanted me to go upstairs with her. I declined. I had an early call the next day. I gave her a big tip for being my good luck charm.
***
From the casino I went to Roomful of Blues. There was a band playing. A fight broke out. People started throwing chairs around the bar. Very messy. I escaped uninjured.
Then I went to another bar. I had been drinking for a little while. Suddenly, I hit that moment when a little while becomes a long while, and the drinking starts to catch up, and you see the potential for something messy coming and the need for extraction.
The next thing I knew, the sun was coming up. I had been out all night. And I was alone (like Harry! like Sonny!) I got into a cab and found my way back to the Hilton. As I pulled up in front of the hotel, Alberto Vitale, Random House’s CEO at the time, was standing outside. He saw me get out of the cab.
Paul! What are you doing up so early?
I had to take Mr. Updike to the airport.1
Good for you! I like that you’re working so hard!
Yes. Well, I need to rest a bit before heading over to the show.
I’ll see you there!
***
Anything Alberto says should be accompanied by an exclamation point. He moves through the world with that kind of brio.
***
My boss at the time claims I never made it back to the show.
***
I went to Dillards and bought a white Armani silk sports coat with my gambling winnings and spent the rest of the weekend AWOL in Sin City.
I remember arriving home in the sports coat, and my wife saying, “What the fuck are you wearing, and what the hell happened in Vegas?” Another cold open.
***
I can confirm that more than a handful of publishing sales reps went to strip clubs, and the industry did not collapse.
I don’t know what sales reps do for fun these days.
I don’t know what anyone in publishing does for fun these days.
In fact, I’m not sure it was ever fun. Any of it.
Until next time,
Kill Your Darlings
This was a lie.
Yes, it really was fun, even for broke assistants drinking cheap dive-bar beer with their colleagues after work. I weep for our Gen Z successors, who now end their days by shutting their laptops and scrolling TikTok...
Paul, it’s John Barlow. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy this. As a former publicist who had a love/hate relationship with my job: loved the theater, hated the apathy of the editors eventually, your writing is a tonic. Nobody writes like you do. Nobody tells it like it is. Nobody has the inclination. Nobody has the fearlessness. Would you ever consider a book? A real book of your adventures in the trade? It would be thrilling. You’re the badass pr I was too chicken shit to be. I admire you tremendously. All kind regards, Barlow. john@woodlot.com.