Two Novels, Two Global Catastrophes, Two Decades Apart | Literary Hub

I'd sold that novel for three grand in an age when young writers were scoring obscene windfalls. Even my own publishing house had just allegedly paid a high six-figure deal to this other first-time author named Manil Suri. Our novels were coming out at the same time, and you can probably guess which novel our publishing house tirelessly promoted and which novel they couldn't have picked out of a police line-up. I kept throwing darts at Manil Suri until the reviews for my novel started coming in. And, boy, there were lots of them, a shit ton, like 40 straight good-to-glowing ones I incessantly reread and could quote at length. I thought I was a made man, but, no, the reviews didn't matter much because bookstores hadn't ordered my hardback-they'd all ordered Manil Suri's instead.