On a Publisher’s Refusal

There was a day in my life, a kind of point of no return, when I lost everything: an apartment, a boyfriend, all my belongings, any clear vision of my future, and, icing on the cake, my bank account was in the red. By pure chance, a man I barely knew picked me up, and we set off on a road trip. We didn’t become a romantic couple by the end of the journey, as happens in movies: we just spent a month together, and then I was on my own again. That was when I decided to write about everything that had happened to me. Since I was no longer attached to anything in this world, my ability to write was the only thing still holding me up…

When my story was finished, I called it Simply Magnetic, in reference to one of the four fundamental forces of physics, and sent it to a French publisher: not the largest or most influential, but the one I could fully identify with, whose editorial line carried a touch of transgressiveness.

My novel was objectively good: well written, funny, and full of humor. It revolved around a poker game, and every character got a happy ending. Basically, it had everything I didn’t have in my own life, which was still shrouded in uncertainty. While my protagonist rode in a convertible sports car along sun-drenched roads, I was enveloped in a thick fog, pedaling a bike with damaged brakes.

I knew it was all just a game, and I even knew the techniques meant to lead me to victory, but it felt even more dangerous than no-limit Texas Hold’em. Actually, the only technique to apply was to stop ruminating on the past or the future, and live entirely in the moment, without tainting the purity of perception with any distracting thoughts. But it’s like in chess: you can know all the theories and still make mistakes, losing every game you play. Or take another example: you may have learned the lesson perfectly, but still be speechless under the professor’s terrifying gaze. Knowledge in theory and in practice are not the same, just as the map is not the territory.

Another essential tactic in the game of my life was to get rid of all masks and false identities. Being Russian, living in France for half of my life, and writing in English, I felt as though I kept creating even more identities instead of letting them go. In doing so, I was making everything increasingly confusing, almost inextricable, like the notorious Gordian Knot.

Please tell me, do you know the legend of the Gordian Knot? It appeared somewhere in the depths of the Persian Empire at the dawn of the first millennium AD and had a reputation for being impossible to untie. The only one who managed it was Alexander the Great: he simply cut it. (By the way, I love this approach to solving problems: treating them as if they didn’t even exist.) In Russia, we learn this story in elementary school, and later we use the expression for any situation that seems hopeless. I just wanted to clarify this, to be sure, because I have a tendency to overload my writing with mythological and artistic allusions that no one has ever heard of. That’s what the publisher pointed out in his commentary on my novel: “Too many irrelevant cultural references weaken your argument.”

The strange thing about this is that, as a reader, I love all these “cultural references”. They make the text somehow deeper and richer, creating connections across different fields, and linking literature to art, history, science, and other disciplines. They allow one to explore further, widening the borders of one’s world, as one begins searching for the paintings, quotes, myths, music, perfumes, and other works mentioned in the text. That’s how Nabokov worked, and it’s what makes readers return to his novels again and again. Brian Boyd, a Nabokov scholar, even launched a website analyzing every allusion noted in Ada or Ardor. Following the same pattern, an entire parallel universe was organized around David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

Moreover, I’ve noticed that some book bloggers on YouTube, along with their followers, often complain that contemporary literature is stagnant and lacks cultural depth, as in the works of the already mentioned Nabokov, David Foster Wallace, Donna Tartt, or whatever. They claim to be willing to read something profound and rooted in cultural context, but the contemporary publishing market only feeds them with something superficial and shallow.

“The publishers don’t offer anything worthwhile,” say the readers.

“The readers aren’t ready,” say the publishers.

It seems like a vicious circle, like Ouroboros, the serpent biting its own tail.

Sorry for another cultural allusion. Not really sorry.

So, back to my novel, Simply Magnetic. The publisher found it interesting and recognized its vivid talent, but ultimately refused to release it. That’s clear: otherwise, I wouldn’t be here confiding in you.

Simply Magnetic turned out not to be magnetic enough. Maybe I should have called it something else. Simply Lovely, for instance. But it seems that phrase is registered as a trademark by Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen. Thus, I’m not allowed to use it without paying him royalties.

(I couldn’t help but wonder what an interesting world we live in! There are words, colors, and even numbers— Charles Leclerc, Verstappen’s rival, has an eye on the “16” — that are “protected” and cannot be used without the owner’s permission. It all feels like one huge dystopian joke.)

It wasn’t merely a standard refusal: it came in two parts, like two acts of a Greek tragedy with a week-long intermission between them. First, they encouraged me, and a few days later, they rejected me, advising that I move on. I’ve heard that this is how abusers behave: at the beginning, they glorify you, and then they abandon you, leaving you alone to question or deny your own worth.

When I received the first email, acknowledging my novel, asking me to wait a little and not share it with anyone else, I was quite excited. But that feeling of joy didn’t last long. Soon, doubts began to overwhelm me. To be honest, it wasn’t my narrative skills that my mind kept ruminating over, but rather the confusing political context I had touched on briefly in my text.

At the same time, I came across an incident in Neville Goddard’s life. He wanted to buy a house and managed to find one that looked exactly as he had dreamed. He could already imagine himself inside its walls. But suddenly, he conjectured that perhaps someone else might be interested in it too… That treacherous thought materialized immediately: a rival emerged out of nowhere, placed a higher bid, and Neville Goddard was left with nothing.

The moral: there are no enemies greater than your own doubts.

Actually, doubt is not the opposite of faith or confidence. The human brain is wired in such a way that we are always believing in something: whether it’s confidence in ourselves or doubt about ourselves. And these beliefs, the moment they arise in the mind with lightning speed, begin to take shape and manifest in what we call reality.

When the second email arrived, some inner part of me already knew what it contained, before I had even opened it. The phantom lighthouse, shining brightly on the horizon, had already been washed from my view by a wave of doubt.

Except for the overabundance of references, the publisher judged my structure too “floating”. By a strange coincidence, I was in the midst of writing an essay on Venice, when I read this. Completely absorbed by this floating city, I could only take this remark as a compliment, as if it carried my novel closer to my dreamlike Serenissima.

“Move on,” the publisher concluded, and the plain truth was that he was right. I hated him for declining my submission, and at the same time I was grateful to him for opening my eyes to all those twitching doubts that had been buzzing in my brain like dung flies.

This turndown felt as if the last support had been knocked out from under me. I had poured myself through terrible experiences to create this text, and in the end, it was not welcomed. I had nothing left — no money, no home, no family — only my writing. And even that was now under suspicion… In Dzogchen, they say: “Let go of the one who wants to let go.” In that moment, with every fiber of my being, I truly understood what it meant.

The reason I wanted to share my novel with the public wasn’t about its plot, the games my characters play, or their romantic/traumatic relationships. Indeed, throughout this text I tried to give voice to people moving from one country to another, mixing languages and cultures, seeking a new home, yet still feeling unrooted and disconnected from parts of themselves. My aim was to find a form for this hybrid way of thinking, shaped and constrained by the frameworks of different languages. You remember: a Russian living in France, writing in English… and I’m not the only one. There are already many of us, and there will be even more in this globalized world. I believe our future will be like this: multilingual, multilayered, and extremely interconnected.

By the law of roller coasters, one throws you away while another reaches for you. The day after, I received an email from a different publisher: the manuscript had been accepted. I breathed a sigh of relief, but it lasted only for a moment. This second publisher suggested I pay 2,000 euros to have my book printed. At that price, I’d be better off doing it myself.

Writing, like a professional sport, can be a deeply self-deprecating and diminishing occupation: you imagine yourself as the voice of a generation, yet your work is only admitted by a vanity press.

But in truth, it’s not really about writing at all… Time and again, it is a matter of ego that constantly fabricates illusions and false expectations, distorting one’s vision of oneself and tearing one away from the here and now.

And finally, all that remains is to let go of the one who wishes to let go and simply move on.