Prose off, "Why must it always be such narcissistic wankery?" edition: Fiction in n+1 that's as bad as all fiction in n+1 v. Fleming story along with an anecdote about Nikil Saval

Tuesday 4/22/25

Once, after years of the standard BS from an editor at n+1 named Nikil Saval, who was never going to let anything of mine run if he could help it, I sent an email basically asking what are we doing here?

I didn't say, "You're a corrupt, bigoted, lying fucker. All of the work you publish is such shit, and you know it."

Or not directly anyway.

Again, it was years. I knew what he was doing, he knew what he was doing, I knew what he was publishing sucked, and he knew it.

Of course, I knew how dumb this person was, but no one is that dumb. Not even someone like this.

You think I'm exaggerating about how bad the fiction was/is? Okay.

Why don't you take a gander at this work of fiction from n+1 written by Mark Doten, called "Piss Trump."

Now, if if I didn't provide you with that link, and I just excerpted that story, you might not have believed it was real.

That's how bad it is, isn't it?

Do I even need to tell you that our friends over at Granta (Motorollah! Don't give my family cause to hide your dead body because we are very rich so it will be your fault!) proclaimed Doten as one of the best young novelists in the world? I probably don't need to tell you that, but I just did. You're going to assume things like that at this point, because that's how it works and only how it works. Bad people who do bad writing are hooked up. Do I need to tell you that Doten is also an editor at Soho, so how do you think that went when along I came years ago with my work which is infinitely better than his?

Probably not so great, right? Probably an automatic, as-soon-as-the-email-gets-opened boilerplate pass, right?

Whoa, what big shocks here.

Predictably, because most of these people are completely unstable and, as we've seen with Michael Griffith and Sven Birkerts--who both likened me to the Mafia, after I finally said something along the lines of...um...excuse me...but it kind of seems like...I don't know...this work of mine isn't really getting a fair, you know...shake--and Scott Stossel, who called me a thug because I said that I was under no obligation to make a secret of the manner in which he'd admitted I'd been treated by him and The Atlantic--have this totally disproportionate response to anything that is not an all-out tonguing of their posteriors, Saval flipped out.

How dare I, said he--the temerity!--question his expertise. You are banned!

Total asshole.

He's now a Pennsylvania state senator.

For real.

But "Piss Trump," baby. That's definitely an editor of great expertise, a venue chock full of them, and not pretentious, clannish, frauds at all, when it comes to judging fiction.

Any fiction that n+1 publishes is guaranteed to be terrible. And by terrible I mean it's so very easy to deride.

I can pick any story in there as an example, but this is a fun one. Here we not only have someone imitating Junot Diaz--and remember that blast of prose off we had with his standard-issue junk?--but referencing Junot Diaz in a story about writing and submissions because that's totally the rich and fascinating stuff of the human experience for the entertainment and edification of the readers out there.

Wait. Shit. I forgot. My bad. None of this slop is for readers. Anyway, here we proof the latest, that being from a story called "Trying to Establish Myself as a Young Man," by Angelo Hernandez Sias.

And before I subject you to this--apologies in advance--understand that I'm not cobbling random bits together. This is from the story--as you can go check for yourself--as the story was published.

Re: recurring phone charges

Hello Julio,

We have identified several lines which we believe remain essential (green), though the status of some lines remains unknown (yellow). The attachment lists telephone charges billed to the station. Please review the cells and let me know which lines may be cut. Thank you.

Best,

Trent Kramer

Director of Broadcasting

PS — What’s the word on the remote broadcast?

This electronic message is intended only for the named recipient and may contain information that is confidential or privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this message is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error or are not the named recipient, please notify us immediately by contacting the sender at the electronic mail address above, and delete and destroy all copies.

Slept in, hard to get up. Café, read with Yadi. She was wiping tears from her book. Left, 0.5 hours at library. Harvest Bowl, made a beat, worked on submission (Marshall). Walked through park, stepped on pile of burrito, phone with Papa. Your mama’s friends are coming over for dinner, he said, to pretend like they’re my friends too. Ran into Francisco, invited me to Kenneth’s show. After walk, past dark, returned to café alone, worked more on beat. Irina, former classmate, present employee of café, brought me Viennese coffee. So good to see you! she said, what are you working on can I listen here’s my number. FaceTimed Deja before bed. Said she liked the beat. Text from Irina: Can’t wait to listen to your stuff. ❤ Could not sleep. Renounce Viennese coffee. Late-night dumplings, organic Cup of Calm in lounge with Yadi, talked music. Found out she went on same walk at same time this afternoon, parallel, ahead.

Chicken apple almond sweet potato goat cheese rice balsamic kale consumed in the student center, where someone disgraced Nocturne in B-flat minor, Op. 9, No. 1, on the lounge piano. Someone here is disrespecting you, I texted Deja, along with a recording. No reply. Ah, she would have said, in my absence they dethrone me. Rest assured, I shall return with a vengeance.

Yadi’s room: wine and bachata with Brujx crew before Kenneth’s show. Jackson, bashful as usual, sat cross-legged on Yadi’s braided cotton rug and drank from a bottle. Francisco, bachata god, danced with Sara asexually, or parodically sexually, liberated by his gayness. Sara fretted about last night, when she accidentally swore on air, then crawled under the board and curled into a fetal ball. I stood organically by Yadi, sipping and saying I would like to delete my “discography” and renounce music. Angst o’clock, she said removing the drink from my hand and taking my hand in hers and pulling. Do not delete your music OK it is an inspiration to some of us you have no right. And it’s just a dance chamaco but suit yourself. Oh all right, I said. It felt good to touch her waist again, warm and swaying under my palm. Not so stiff, she said squeezing the back of my neck. I've been taking lessons in Dominican masculinity from Francisco but I'm a slow learner, I said, forgive me. Dominican men don't ask forgiveness, she said. We must be reading different Junots, I said. You're still reading Junot, she said.

What experts! Huh? They sure know a lot about great fiction.

Do these people ever give it a rest with this kind of crap? Is there ever anything from them that sucks less or has the smallest hint of a point to it?

To recap:

We must be reading different Junots, I said. You're still reading Junot, she said.

That's outstanding. Thanks. You're awesome at writing. Great stuff there.

I could leave the rest of this entry blank, and still prevail in the prose off. Because anyone would rather see a blank space than have to read the above. But that's not really in the competitive spirit of the thing, though, is it, and, true, I do enjoy the total beat down aspect of what happens once we get to this part. And as we say, the proof is in the prose. All of the discrimination, the water carrying, the BS, the racism, sexism, clannishness, nepotism, the hook-ups, none of it can hide the truth that is made apparent and undeniable to all who see this when we put their work, next to mine. So let's do that. Ready?

He was going to run out of the cafe and never come back. Just like that, he’d lost his between-days rallying place forever. Involuntarily, he bit down and heard a resounding crack, unsure if it was mint, tooth, or both. There were no other options than to flee. He wasn’t versed in any of the techniques of resuscitation, and the thought that occurred to him about at least going through the motions of pressing down on the man’s chest with stacked palms and counting one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four passed as quickly as it had arrived.

But he had to say something, couldn’t do the most inopportune form of an Irish goodbye, so he blurted out, “They’re just pants! That’s all they are!” to looks of utter bafflement and the inculpatory gaze of the law student, and left as fast as possible without actually running, as if raising his knees above a certain height could both get him arrested and serve as possible evidence—thanks to the door cam footage—of a premeditated role in what had happened.

He heard the siren from the ambulance before he was all the way through the entrance area and back outside into the cold night, which no longer felt cold. They’d be able to see him soon enough if he went home via the direction he usually did. Might ask for the help of another pair of qualified hands or the lowdown from someone who spoke their language about the fallen man’s condition as they hurried to his aid, picking up snatches of invaluable information on the fly because sometimes a single saved second results in the victim being saved, as he’d read. If most sports were games of inches, then certainly life had to have its own omnipotent unit of measurement.

But yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm not one of these amazing experts. That's almost certainly what it is. And yes, that is a very nice (presumably) indoor scarf from Mr. Saval. Expert scarf.