Genius

Might want to read this one.

Please tell me it's double-spaced.

No such luck.

Where did you get it?

A woman named Aline Bernstein. The stage designer?

The author is her protege.

Every other publisher in town has already turned it down.

- Is it any good? - Good?

No.

But it's unique.

- A quick look. - Thanks, Max. I'm in your debt.

602 to New Canaan, last call!

- Good evening, Pete. - All aboard, Mr. Perkins.

A stone, a leaf...

an unfound door...

of a stone, a leaf, a door.

And of all the forgotten faces.

Which of us has known his brother?

Which of us has looked into his father's heart?

Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent?

Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?

Remembering, speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language...

the lost lane-end into heaven...

a stone, a leaf, an unfound door.

Where? When?

O lost...

and by the wind grieved...

ghost, come back again.

A destiny that leads the English to the Dutch is strange enough...

but one that leads from Epsom into Pennsylvania...

and thence into the hills that shut in Altamont...

over the proud coral cry of the cock...

and the soft stone smile of an angel...

is touched by that dark miracle of chance.

Hello, Daddy!

Hello, ducks.

More rehearsal.

He didn't even notice us.

"Fear no more the heat o' the sun.

"Nor the furious winter's rages.

"Thou thy worldly task hast done.

"Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.

"Golden lads and girls..."

Jimmy, I told you already. I don't like the movies.

I read books.

You're not listening to me.

Subtract us into nakedness and night again...

and you shall see begin in Crete 4, 000 years ago...

the love that ended yesterday in Texas.

Hello, Daddy. How do I look?

- Just beautiful. - It's the prom next week.

Already? You're so old and not married yet.

O death in life that turns our men to stone!

O change that levels down our gods!

Hello, Mr. Perkins?

Your father doesn't approve of my drama club.

Daddy, why don't you want Mama to be an actress again?

Because limelight is not becoming to a woman of your mother's years.

- Oh, you rat! - Oh, boo!

Oh, yes, you save the whirlwind life of glamour for yourself.

Book signings and parties and the like...

while we languish here in the wilderness.

Do we live in the wilderness? How thrilling!

We should get knives!

Yes, we should! Guess who will be the head pirate?

Cecil, did you ever pick up a girl before?

- Did you? - No.

Oh, goodness.

You're the funniest person I've ever seen.

Hold it. What's the matter, Cecil?

I don't know.

It stopped, Cecil!

- Don't wait up. - Ten.

- Eleven. - Ten.

Swine.

He had listened attentively to a sermon in chapel...

by a sophomore with false whiskers.

He had prepared studiously for an examination...

on the contents of the college catalog.

Ten.

That's a very long paragraph.

It started four pages ago.

Poor Maxwell.

You're too young to be in love.

How old do you have to be?

Forty.

Or, I should say...

he was like a man...

who stands upon a hill above the town he has left...

yet does not say "The town is near,"

but turns his eyes upon the distant soaring ranges.

The end.

Mighty books.

Mighty books.

- May I help you? - God damn.

Look at all these books.

Do you ever stop to consider the pure man-sweat...

that went into each and every line?

Little testaments of faith, screamed out in the dark night...

in the cold, dark night when the wind's blowing alpine...

in the vain hope that someone will read and hear and understand.

You must be Thomas Wolfe.

Are all these your authors?

Not Tolstoy.

Mr. Perkins.

Please, sit down.

I wasn't even gonna come.

Prefer to get my rejections in the mail.

There's something surgically antiseptic about those familiar words...

"We regret to inform you..."

But I wanted to meet you...

the man who first read Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald and said...

"Yes! The world needs poets.

"My God! Someone publish this bastard...

"'cause the world needs poets.

"Or why even live?"

So I'm looking at that man now.

Well, congratulations...

on finding one genius. Two, if you count Hemingway.

As for this one...

he'll persevere.

You can't kill the deep roots by cutting off a few top branches.

And the roots go deep, Mr. Perkins.

And they are unassailable.

Mr. Wolfe, we intend to publish your book.

If that's acceptable to you.

Now, I'd like to do some work with you.

In its current state, O Lost is simply too long for one volume.

I think you could afford to shape it a bit...

cut off a few of the "top branches."

Mr. Perkins.

I know you're not fooling with me. You don't look the type.

But my God, this is too much for me.

You don't know. You don't know. You don't know.

Every son-of-a-bitch publisher in New York hates my book.

Mr. Wolfe, if you could sit down.

- Tom. - Tom.

Tom, please.

Tom.

I take it your book is autobiographical in nature.

No other way to write, is there?

Eugene Gant is me!

And my mama is Eliza, and my papa is W.O. Gant.

We'll get into all that.

I know it's too long. I know it's too long.

My lord, you don't know how I struggled to cut the gorgon down.

You don't know how I fought with her.

But I'll cut anything you say.

You just give me the word.

Tom...

the book belongs to you.

All I want to do is to bring your work to the public...

in its best possible form.

My job, my only job...

is to put good books into the hands of readers.

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

Now, Scribner's has agreed to give you...

our standard advance against royalties.

If this is satisfactory...

we can proceed at whatever pace is comfortable for you.

$500?

No one ever thought my writing was worth a dime.

Oh, lord!

Do you mind if we start tomorrow?

Of course.

I promise to work hard.

Yeah!

Oh, lord!

I can barely...

Oh, mighty. Oh, indeedy.

"Mr. Wolfe, we intend to publish your book."

No!

Tom!

Oh, my angel, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, my lover, my love.

I'm so...

I'm so happy for you. Oh!

How much you figure we have to cut?

I'm guessing around 300 pages.

It's not the page count that's important.

It's telling the story.

There it is. Four years of my life.

My heart bleeds to see any of it go.

But I guess it's die dog or eat the hatchet.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

The last few weeks working on the book...

have been the most thunderingly thrilling...

of my entire woebegone life.

Glad I could amuse you.

You spend your lifetime in the pages of books...

as we do...

and those characters emerge that speak to you deep...

to the marrow.

They are your mirrors.

In my time...

I aspired to Sydney Carton.

Or Pierre...

from the Tolstoy.

But I know that's not who I am, much as I would have it so.

We are not those characters we want to be.