It was Huffer’s editor to whom Cass had originally sent the manuscript of The Varieties of Religious Illusion. Cass knew his name from Huffer’s endless regaling of his former colleagues with tales from the life now lived far above their heads. The editor had called six weeks after Cass had sent the manuscript to him, just at the point when Cass was considering which university press to send it to next, and had invited him to lunch in New York. Over grilled branzini, he had allowed that Cass’s approach was interesting, “especially the Appendix. I liked it. It’s more provocative than the rest of the book. I don’t suppose you could switch it around and make the Appendix the book and the book the Appendix, could you?” While Cass was still gaping, the editor had named his figure.
“This is the absolute upper limit of what I can offer,” he had said, the slightest seizure distorting his upper lip.
Going back on the Acela Express-this was the first time Cass had ever taken the expensive high-speed train rather than the slower regional or, more often, the Chinatown bus, which makes the run from New York’s Chinatown to Boston’s for fifteen dollars and only occasionally catches fire-the fumes of his euphoria making him so giddy that he had laughed aloud twice and sufficiently startled the starchy matron next to him so that she had changed places well before she detrained at New Haven, Cass had suddenly thought back to the editor’s oddly defensive words and the equally odd look on his face while he had said them, a suppressed smile of some sort making merry with his upper lip.
René Descartes identified the seat of the soul as the pineal gland, but in Cass’s experience it’s the upper lip that reflects the true state of the soul, giving accurate tells on the self-regarding emotions. Self-doubt and self-satisfaction will both betray themselves there. And if there is an egotist lurking within, the upper lip is the place that will give him away.
Flashed by the backside of New London, Connecticut, Cass thought back to the editor’s self-congratulatory upper lip and felt the touch of a misgiving tugging at the edge of his elation. Back in Cambridge, he called Marty Huffer, asking him what he thought of the offer. Ninety seconds after he had hung up with Huffer, Cass’s phone had rung, with Huffer’s agent, Sy Auerbach, on the line.
“You can’t possibly accept a contract for a book like that without representation,” Auerbach had informed-or flattered or rebuked-him.
