I know that you love books, so I am sending you my Residua in hope that you will take this project yourself. It is a book difficult to envisage in the marketplace, and thus I need a bit of extra help with it.

A few words about myself. I came to the United States in 1970, when I was twenty-four. In 1975 I returned to Yugoslavia with two graduate degrees—one from Harvard and another from MIT—and a tendency toward leftism. I started working on my Residua in 1976. From the very beginning, I embraced the fragmentary form and the “one life—one book” principle. The first few volumes were published (under pseudonym) in Telos and several similar journals. After four years of successful professional practice, I grew tired of socialism and its discontents. Since 1979 I have been living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I teach at the Department of Architecture at MIT.

Of course, I have published my share of learned books and papers, but I have never grown tired of marginal scribbling. In fact, it has become central to my existence. My intention is to publish several editions of Residua, and I believe it is time for the first edition. I also believe that my book will in time become very special—a central document of the postwar generation.

The main difficulty with my Residua is its idiosyncratic form. I have written much on the virtues of my method and “style,” but I know that all this will remain mere boasting without a courageous publisher. That is why I have decided to venture this letter.

Addendum I (October 26, 1989)

Quite predictably, someone from the book lover’s apparatus responded to my letter with a few words that were courteous in form and inane in content. This is what a certain Drenka Willen, senior editor, had to say in her letter of May 29, 1989:

Mr. Jovanovich has asked that I thank you for having brought your manuscript, Residua, to our attention. I regret to tell you, however, that it is not a work that would be suitable for our list.

In closing, Ms. Willen writes in Mr. Jovanovich’s name and her own, referring to my work: “We send you our best wishes for placing it elsewhere.” Of course, they also sent back my manuscript—most likely unread.

What piques me about this letter among letters is the unwillingness and/or inability to deal with the situation squarely: “Your writing is abominable and we would appreciate it very much if you would spare us from having to deal with it ever again.” Period. Instead, publishers’ letters of rejection are full of prattle about unsuitability for their lists. Granted, some small publishers may have rather limited offerings and are justified in responding in this fashion. However, in the case of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, one of the biggest publishing houses in the world, this kind of argument is strictly speaking meaningless.

When I come to think of it, the puzzling thing about my reaction to letters like this is that I am disappointed and even hurt ever anew. Every time I send my manuscript to a publisher I expect at least an honest letter, if not an intellectually compelling letter, about the reasons for rejecting it. Put differently, although I prefer not being rejected to an unconvincing rejection, I prefer any odd but reasoned rejection to the “argument” of unsuitability. But, again, the puzzling thing is that I keep dreaming about the publisher on a white horse…

Addendum II (November 4, 1989)

How did I know that William Jovanovich, the chief executive officer of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich for thirty-five years, loved books of all things? Simple. I found a brief biography of his in Business Week’s listing of the corporate élite—chief executives of the top thousand firms in the United States—of October 21, 1988. On p. 190, the biography reads: “His real passion is literature; he’s written four books and edited numerous volumes himself.” Thus my quixotic letter.