Drowned in the Gulf of New Mexico

     John McPhee has been a pole star my entire professional life. From his choice of topics, like "Oranges," a book about ... wait for it ... oranges, to "La Place de la Concorde Suisse," where he goes on maneuvers with Switzerland's citizen army, McPhee has been a reliable font of fascination since I was in kindergarten. Brilliant structure — "The Search for Marvin Gardens" alternates a game of Monopoly with a tour of Atlantic City, whose streets line the board — coupled with detailed observation and gorgeous, unforgettable language and metaphor. In "Coming into the Country" he falls in a river in Alaska. The "gin-clear water cold as an ice bucket."
     When I was writing my first book, on college pranks, one chapter was to be about Ditch Day at Caltech. There was plenty on the annual student spree, and my first inclination was to save a bunch of time and money and assemble the chapter from published reports. Then I thought: "What would John McPhee do?"John McPhee would go. So I pried the secret date out of the senior class president, bought an airplane ticket, and flew to Pasadena. It was the right move.
     Yes, I have not read all 32 of McPhee's books — he took a detour into geology that left me behind. The fault, I assume, is my own. But now, at 92, he is offloading his lifetime knowledge, and it's a cold compress on the head of any fevered writer. Well me, anyway, but I assume others.
     Plagued by idiotic covers? John McPhee was plagued by idiotic covers. Tormented by typos? John McPhee let some doozies through. As did writers he knows or is related to.
     In "Tabula Rasa" in the May 13, New Yorker, he tells the story of a son-in-law, Mark Svenvold, who wrote a book called "Big Weather."
     "When 'Big Weather' appeared in hardcover, a sentence in the opening paragraph mentioned 'the Gulf of New Mexico,''' McPhee writes. "Where did that mutinous 'New' come from, a typo right up there with 'pretty' for 'petty'? Mark said it was unaccountable. For a start, I suggested that he look in his computer, if the original manuscript was still there. It was, and in that first paragraph was the Gulf of New Mexico. Remarkable, yes, but think where that paragraph had been. It had been read by a literary agent, an acquisitions editor, an editorial assistant, a copy editor, a professional proofreader, at least one publicity editor — and not one of these people had noticed the goddam Gulf of New Mexico."
     Some errors just lodge in your mind. I can't tell you how many times I've called the Edward Hopper masterpiece in The Art Institute "Nighthawks at the Diner." It's just "Nighthawks." "Nighthawks at the Diner" is a Tom Waits album. I make the error, Bill Savage corrects me, then two years pass and it happens again. Bill must be exasperated, but I can't stop myself.
     But that isn't the story I want to tell.
     Deep breath. Okay. The way participants in a 12-step program meeting will be emboldened by someone's tale of woe, I will now tell mine. I worked very hard to keep errors out of my most recent book, "Every Goddamn Day." I dragooned friends who were imbued in Chicago history to give it critical reads, invoking Lee Bey's classic dictum, "Read it like you hate me." Three, count 'em, three academic readers reviewed the book. I was feeling pretty confident as publication approached.
     Particularly about the introduction. That image of history not being a place or an artifact. Quite proud of that. I would read it for pleasure, to reassure myself, as publication loomed. Including this sentence on the second page:

     "History gathers at certain places — battlefields, coastlines, cities — and congeals around certain dates. The arrival of the shock: Dec. 7, 1941. Nov. 22, 1963. Sept. 11, 2001. Jan. 6, 2020..."

     Wait a second. That isn't right. It's 2021. Jan. 6, 2021. I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. A frantic email to my editor at the University of Chicago Press. Then a desperate phone call. I'm sorry, he said. There is nothing to be done. It's too late. The book has gone to press.
     That was unacceptable. I'll buy up the initial press run, I said, mulch it, and go to a second printing. We can't do that, he replied, because it would delay the publication by three months. We've set up events, publicity (plus it would have cost me, oh, $20,000 that I didn't have. But it's a sign of how desperate I was that I made the offer without even doing the math).
     This error was on the second page. It wasn't something readers would miss. People would see it, and would think, "This guy's an idiot. He can't even get the year of the insurrection right." The whole book was ruined. Two years' effort, kafloosh, down the toilet.
     As it happened, I was meeting my old NU classmate, Rush Pearson for sushi that day. You may know Rush as a skilled comedian, actor and longtime star of the Mud Show at the Renaissance Faire. I of course gave an agitated rendition of this terrible blunder, and how humiliating it was.
     "I dedicated that book to my boys!" I moaned. He smiled wickedly and raised an eyebrow.
     "Did you spell their names right?" he asked. That stopped me dead, and I laughed. A lot really. Being able to laugh at the disaster was highly therapeutic. I've always loved and respected Rush — he is a sui generis individual — but I love and respect him double for that.
     This is going on too long, but I can't stop here. There is a coda. That afternoon, Timothy Mennel, my editor at the University of Chicago Press phoned. "You're the luckiest son-of-a-bitch on the face of the earth," he said, or words to that effect. The editors at the Press were sitting around, saying how sad it was that this midlist nobody's book they were generously publishing was forever marred by this forehead slapping blunder. And someone looked at — in my mind's eye — a clipboard on the wall and said, "Actually ... you know ... they're pressing the big red button at three o'clock." Or words to that effect. The printing hadn't started, but was set to. In an hour. Calls were made. A few electrons rearranged. And the date became "2021" in print.
     So if I seem a little bit more grateful, these past two years, well fate has been kind to me. As has John McPhee, who generously shared a few of his own blunders and disappointments. If it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone. I do not share much with John McPhee, in the talent or effort or reputation. But we both fuck up in exactly the same manner.