Steve Hannah - 15 Oct

After eleven entertaining years as CEO of The Oniontwo of those years during the Great Recession were not what you would call comicalI had had enough. Geez, that sounds a little melodramatic: I wasnt planning to go out behind the barn and swallow a bedspring. I just wanted to do something different. Why not write a book?

I called a couple of my friends who made real money writing books. They introduced me to their A-list agents in New York. The first one, a guy who had a fancy office in Manhattan, looked like Ichabod Crane, only not as handsome. So you want to write a book about The Onion, he said. No, actually, I told him, I want to write a mini-memoir, and the Onion years get only a modest mention. A lot of it takes place in Wisconsin, I said with great enthusiasm. He stared at me like a dog watching televisionthat is, he tried to follow what I was saying, tilted his head to and fro, but there wasnt a glimmer of understanding. I left after fifteen minutes.

So I took the subway to Brooklyn and met the second literary agent. He reminded me of Alec Baldwin giving that pep talk in Glengarry Glen Ross. You knowvery salesy.

You know what I said to myself right away when I heard that the guy who ran The Onion wanted to write a book? he asked. He didnt wait for me to answer. I said to myself, You lucky bastard! I mean, you two lucky bastards. You because with this clown Trump being president of the United States, what could be a better time to write a book about The Onion? And lucky me because I could sell this thing and we could make some money. When I told him that I wasnt proposing a book about The Onionalthough, I agreed, the Trump thing made satire the flavor of the dayhe was gobsmacked.

Dont take this the wrong way, he said, but youre not famous. The Onion is famous! People want to read about The Onion. Nobody wants to read a book about somebody whos not famous. Undeterred, I tried to tell him what my book was going to be aboutin short, about my life in Wisconsinbut it was pointless. Come back and see me when you come to your senses, he said. The meeting lasted longer than the first one but not long enough to get through the ten-items-or-less line at Piggly Wiggly.

I called one of my book-writing buddies and reported back. He said that if he didnt need to make tuition money for his kidsmine were already out of college, so I had that going for mehe would go to a reputable university press and pitch the book. The University of Wisconsin publishes a lot of interesting stuff, he said. Have you talked to them?