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‘He Is Not Writing Another Novel’
The novelist Percy Marks told a newspaper he wasn’t
On November 10, 1929, the Macon Telegraph published this very funny tidbit:
Percy Marks, whose new novel, The Unwilling God, will be published by Harpers October 16th, went out to Berkeley to pass the summer and now announces that he intends to stay out there indefinitely. He had been living in Scarsdale, N.Y. … He has not taught since 1924. Since then, he has lectured, written five books and married. He is not writing another novel.
Maybe you have to have written five books with your sixth about to be released — a condition I find myself in at this moment — to feel the glee of the declaration: “He is not writing another novel.”
Maybe it was only a description of his present moment and not quite a promise of future abstemious behavior.
The novel The Unwilling God is about a college football player who loses his enthusiasm for the sport when he goes professional.
Percy Marks did go on to write more books, which I mention in case you’re worried.
His first novel was The Plastic Age. Published in 1924, it appeared to depict students at Brown University (where Marks was then teaching English) engaged in activities like smoking and kissing. The university…
