God Save the Mark

Donald Westlake

I said, What is it?
My book, he said reverently. He patted the nearest stack of papers. This is it.
Your book? A sort of dread overtook me, and I said, You mean, your autobiography?
Oh, no! Not at all, no. I didn't have that sort of career, not me, no. Quiet tour, quiet tour. He gazed down fondly at his stacks of paper. No, this isn't fact at all. But based on fact, naturally, based on fact.
A novel then, I said.
In a way, in a certain way. But the history is accurate. He squinted at me as though to demonstrate how accurate he'd been, and said, To the finest detail. Facts almost impossible to find, all in here, all accurate. Studied the era, got it all down.
Still groping in the dark, I said, It's a historical novel.
In a manner of speaking, he said. Kneeling there beside his suitcase full of paper, he leaned toward me, braced one hand on his manuscript, and whispered, It's a retailing of the campaigns of Julius Caesar, with the addition of aircraft.
I said, I beg your pardon?
I call it, he said, Veni, Vidi, Vici Through Air Power. Pretty good, eh?

What is the heart of an author, the produce of his mind, that he has nursed and sheltered and carried, at the moment he shows it to another can sound so startling hollow and worthless. Books do need a champion, if not their author, than who?