Text Message from Los Angeles

On the demented, celebrity-crazed, surrender-happy, endlessly-on-the-verge-of-being-wiped-off-the-planet publishing industry. (Note to panicked book lovers: Everything is going to be okay.)

by Paul Constant

Larry King's backyard in Beverly Hills, with its high hedges, glittering pool, and verdant lawn, is full of Industry People. Besides Larry King, there aren't any movie or television stars here, but you get the sense that these are the people who hire the stars. There is a giant portrait of Larry King made entirely out of Jelly Bellies in the room overlooking the lawn. On the buffet table in the dining room is a mountainous spread of medium-rare bison, a layer-cake-like dip composed of seven varieties of goat cheese, dishes of duck pâté, and platters of other things so bizarre they almost seem like they were ordered off a menu from a myth.

Media mogul and honest-to-god billionaire Ted Turner is wandering around, looking small in his gray suit. He walks up to a woman, goes for an air kiss, and stops himself. "Oh, I'm sorry," he says. "I thought you were my old girlfriend." His accent is very Southern—downright Suhthuhn, in fact—and the chuckle in his voice causes the woman to demur and forgive him. "Meet my new girlfriend," he says to her, introducing a woman not quite half his age, then wandering away, his new girlfriend trailing behind. Also in attendance are a couple dozen booksellers from around the country, here in town for BookExpo America (BEA), the annual book-industry convention. Though the booksellers are dressed in literally the best clothes they own, they still look cheap next to the tanned, coiffed, and face-tucked rich folks standing next to them, simply because a $500 white shirt is always going to look better than a $50 white shirt. The haves and the have-nots stay in their cliques for the most part. A few enterprising book publicity people try to ascend the social ladder, but their small talk doesn't gain them purchase. They are pushed back in the face of having absolutely nothing in common to discuss beyond the air we're all sharing.

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