The Book I Will Write

John Henry Fleming contacts an editor at Knopf because he wants to write a book. Not just any book. A book about love, fate, hope, dreams, reality, and “fantastic visions of dancing foxes sporting mirrored sunglasses.” Despite a polite brush-off, Fleming’s persistence strikes a chord, and he’s soon exchanging emails with the hard-drinking editor (“a specter in a windy Italian restaurant”), her lovelorn editorial assistant (“your baggage-free ex-lover), and a desperate literary agent (“when I say ‘we,’ I’m referring mainly to myself”)—all without having written anything but the dedication.

After Fleming gets kicked out of his self-described garret and is forced to live in the local public library, he’s stalked and later kidnapped by members of The Zeppelin Society, then threatened with murder by the son of a famous dead author whose book Fleming must track down for inspiration. Through it all, Fleming keeps up a virtual flirtation with the editorial assistant, falls hard for the mysterious library Story Lady, and makes plans for a book his agent believes will be a “vegetarian alt-history eco-thriller” featuring Michael Jackson as an organic tomato farmer with a plan to save the world.

Will Fleming get his book written before he’s hunted down? Will he ever even start it? The Book I Will Write, told completely in email exchanges, is a hilarious send-up of the writing life and the modern publishing business. The book first appeared as a serial novel on the Atticus Books website and is now available as an ebook.