The Literary Lion
Subtitle: This is the shit you go through when you’re trying to get started.
In The Dead Stripper, Steve Piasecki takes the train to New York to meet two literary agents. He has a definite appointment with one, but not the other. They traded phone calls and Steve hopes he can just drop in cold and get together with him.
Steve’s the main character in The Dead Stripper. He’s an aspiring author trying to get an agent to represent him to the New York City publishers. The man he’s hoping to see is Peter Miller. He puts movie and book deals together and calls himself the Literary Lion.
When I was an aspiring author and trying to hook up with an agent, I made such a trip to Manhattan ─ and I dropped in cold on an agent named Peter Miller, who called himself the Literary Lion.
Here’s how that fictitious meeting went for Steve Piasecki – by coincidence, pretty much the same way it went for me in real life.
I’m walking south on Sixth Avenue less than a block from Peter Miller’s building. I drank a second cup of coffee at Wally’s and we chatted in between customers. I never looked at any of the prices but gave him a ten when I left and told him to keep the change, and he didn’t complain.
Another block later I enter Peter Miller’s building. A uniformed doorman is standing at a podium in the middle of the lobby talking to a woman. A man’s standing behind the woman, also waiting to talk to the doorman. I walk straight past the three of them toward the elevators.
“Can I help you?” the doorman calls out to me. He sounds tired, like he’s finishing an overnight shift and his replacement hasn’t arrived yet.
“I have a meeting with Peter Miller,” I tell him.
“I’ll call him,” the doorman says. “Please wait your turn.”
“I’m in a hurry,” I say. “A touch late, and he knows I’m coming. Been here before.”
I hear the doorman grumbling as I reach the elevators. Fortunately a bell rings as soon as I press the button and the door opens. I step on the elevator and ride it up to the twelfth floor.
As soon as I get off, I start looking at the numbers on the doors. Judging from the way they’re flowing, his office is halfway down the hall and on the left. I’m crossing my fingers as I walk.
When I reach the door, I double-check the number. It looks right. I think it’s his office, so I try the handle but it doesn’t turn. I knock, and wait almost a minute without a response. I knock again, louder this time.
Thirty seconds later the door opens and Peter Miller’s standing there. I recognize him because he looks exactly like the photo on his website ─ except his hair looks disheveled like he just got out of bed and he’s wearing a bathrobe and slippers.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asks me in a New York accent. That’s not exactly the greeting I’m hoping for, and then he starts looking me up and down with suspicious eyes.
“I’m Steve Piasecki. I emailed you the other day about a book I’m working on. You emailed me back and said you might be interested in representing me. So here I am.”
“I don’t remember,” he says.
“I’m not making it up.”
“Must’ve been one of my associates,” he says. “But this is my apartment, you know, where I live. You can’t just knock on my door without an appointment.”
“Sorry. This is the address on your website so I assumed it was your office. My mistake. Didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll get in touch later and see if we can get together the next time I’m in New York.”
I turn to leave.
“Hold on,” he says.
“Yeah?” I stop, then turn back to face him.
He glances at my laptop and then at my briefcase. “You’re here and I’m here, so you got what you want.” He opens the door and steps back. “Come in.”
Excerpt from The Dead Stripper by Barry Bowe
Back to real life. I liked Peter, but I liked the other agent better. So I went with her and she put a couple deals together for me. Then God love her, she died. So I called Peter and told him what happened. He called me a couple weeks later and asked me if I’d like to go to Houston. He thought there was a potential book/movie deal, but the guy who contacted him couldn’t write. The guy would be willing to pay my expenses and split the deals.
Obviously I went, and spent six months in Houston. The project looked so good at one point that Peter flew down to Houston, spent a couple days, and finalized the deal.
Unfortunately, it fell through ─ but those are the chances you take. I had a great time. I was on the defense team with Dick DeGuerin, one of the best defense attorneys in the country. We were in court for two months and I learned a lot about courtroom proceedings. I remember thinking, Man, I’d love to be a trail lawyer.
Back in his apartment in New York Peter’s walls were covered with pictures of lions and he called himself the Literary Lion. I’ll only mention one of his deals ─ the 2004 CBS production of Helter Skelter.
Today Peter Miller still adds “The Literary Lion” after his name, but now he calls his agency the Global Lion and operates out of Pompano Beach.
Maybe I’ll drop in on him the next time I’m in Pompano.
The Dead Stripper will be out March 1st.
I’m America’s Best Crime Writer – Barry Bowe – & I approve this message.
My first book – Born to Be Wild – Published in 1992 – Still selling on Amazon & Kindle. A true story about certain members of the Warlocks motorcycle gang.
The story took 21 years to play out – many twists & turns – an amalgam of Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad – but these outlaw bikers make the Sons look like Cub Scouts.
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