On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 2:34 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:
Hi, Michelle,
I hope your summer was good and you are well. Is it possible for you to give me an update about my Garments of Fleas? I thank you.
Ciao,
Regina
----- Original Message -----
From: Michelle Quint
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers
Hi Regina~
You'd have to check with Eli. His email is [redacted]. Thanks!
Michelle
On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 8:16 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:
Hi Michelle,
You're the best! Thank you.
Ciao,
Regina
----- Original Message -----
From: Regina Edelman
To: Eli Horowitz
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2008 4:31 PM
Subject: Fw: Dave Eggers
Dear Eli,
I hope you're doing well. I believe you already know who I am. I'm kind of confused if I should introduce myself or not, anyhow, I'm the author of Garments of Fleas, looking forward for a follow-up about my work. Michelle, Dave's assistant, gave me your e-mail address so that I can check with you.
Thank you so much for your attention.
Yours,
Regina Edelman
I sent the e-mail to Mr. Horowitz on Labor Day, September 1st. I understood that he probably wouldn’t be working in the office on that day, and maybe that was why he didn’t reply to me then, but seven days passed, and knowing that I was dealing with educated people who learned somewhere to ignore who they think worthless, I patiently waited those days before I e-mailed him again to find out what his offense to me would be:
On Mon, Sept 8, 2008 at 5:53 PM, Regina Edelman wrote:
Dear Eli,
I hope you are well. I'm resending the e-mail below to you, because when I sent it for the first time last Monday 9/1 it was Memorial Day, and I assume that you were not in the office on that day. Have a good evening, and thank you for your attention.
Yours,
Regina
After I sent the last e-mail, I noticed that I wrote Memorial Day instead of Labor Day. Well, it was too late to fix, and two days later:
----- Original Message -----
From: Eli Horowitz
To: Regina Edelman; Jordan Bass
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2008 8:52 AM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers
Hi there. We get thousands of these each year, so I need a bit more info. Was your manuscript hard-copy or emailed? When was it sent? And did you include a return envelope.
I’m on the road at the moment, so I’m also copying Jordan Bass, who may be able to help as well.
Eli
It was clear the Dave and Michelle didn’t really want to help because neither of them told Eli that I was sending my manuscript to their shit pile for a second time. His careless insult, that they "get thousands of these" was a slap that I understood to mean: I’m going to reject you, idiot!
Besides having the power to reject me, I also knew that Dave and his followers are regardless of others’ time, dear reader, and so I patiently typed again in effort to clarify their confusion, and cc'd Dave so he could see that what I said was true, and to see if he would stand up like a man and my supporter like he said he was:
On 9/10/08 4:42 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:
Dear Eli and Jordan:
It’s a pleasure to read from you. Because time seems even shorter when on the road like you are at the moment, I'll briefly tell you about myself and how I was brought to your attention.
Firstly, because I've been having a friendly relationship through letters with Mr. Eggers for almost two years. How? In April 2007 Dave Eggers came to Manhattan to promote What Is The What at Donnell Library. I wrote him a letter at my husband's direction, Daryl Edelman (Google him so you can be more familiar with his talent), who is the editor and mentor of my project Garments of Fleas, which I truly believed was under your attention. So, at the library, my husband and I sat in the first row on the left. When Mr.Eggers finished the show and left the stage my heart sank with melancholy for I thought I'd never be able to deliver the letter to introduce myself nor my work to him. Turned out that magically Mr. Eggers came back to the stage, alone, to retrieve his computer cables, I think. The moment turned back to me again, and perfectly it was possible to deliver Mr. Eggers my letter. Time went on; about a month latter Dave Eggers answered me, his subject line, Great Letter, and he told me that I wrote him an intriguing letter, then solicited me to submit my project to him, so I did. He wrote he probably needed until last December to read it, but Mr. Eggers' busy time didn't allow him to accomplish his good intentions, but he held my hopes then by writing that he still intended to read my manuscript, and to check with him a few months after December. For a period of our e-mail exchanges I believed I was a miserable vermin beggar with no true gold and of weak mind with no understanding to negotiate for the greatness of intelligence. But no, I'm a serious woman, fifty years old, an observer, a self-taught student of men's mind behavior and life's intelligence on earth, born in Brazil in poverty and ignorance, run away from karmic doom of generations at age forty to try better in America. $3,700 was all in my pocket. I learned English in free schools in America. So, in sorrow, I exchanged some more e-mails with Mr. Eggers. I can send you all the e-mails we've exchanged if you need. Finally, April 21st 2008, Michelle wrote in his name the e-mail below to solicit my work for the second time, and Michelle and I exchanged some few more e-mails (scroll down please, so, you can read to understand).
I sent you hard copy, signed for at your office on April 25th at 10:55AM by D.Franich, and no, I didn't send any return envelope. I can send you a third copy.
Thank you for your time.
Yours,
Regina
----- Original Message ----
From: Jordan Bass
To: Regina Edelman; Eli Horowitz
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2008 11:22 AM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers
Hi Regina,
it looks like we do have your manuscript here—sorry about our slow response. We’ll try to have an answer for you soon—thanks for sending it in—
Jordan
On 9/11/08 7:48 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:
Dear Jordan,
Thank you very much for your reply. Sorry if it looks like I sounded like I was rushing everyone. I didn't mean to be pushy, for patience is one of my virtues, and so patiently I'll wait for your fair answer. I just wanted an update. You gave me one, so thank you. Your words however aren't exactly clear to me if you have my manuscript or not, anyway I understood you do, but let me know if you don't and I'll send you a third copy asap.
It's a pleasure to communicate with you. Have a good evening.
Regards,
Regina
And a few days later, I received from Jordan Bass the expected “kill this flea for me” punch line for the end of Dave Egger’s I Love Lucy drop dead comedy plot:
----- Original Message -----
From: Jordan Bass
To: Regina Edelman
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: Dave Eggers
Hi Regina--thanks for checking in on this, and sorry it’s taken us so long to respond. We rely on submissions like yours, since a good portion of what we publish comes to us unsolicited. Unfortunately, we won't be able to publish your book--we're a very small company, and can only put out a few each year. Thanks again for your efforts, though, and best of luck with it,
Jordan
Dave always knew the size of his publishing company, didn’t he? As you can testify, dear reader, I was told by him first to submit my work, then his assistant asked for it again, and so twice I sent the manuscript to satisfy their bizarre motivation. Why did I deserve this treatment from you, Dave? No one even read my manuscript through.
Like you said in What is the What, “If you knew what I’ve been through, you wouldn’t treat me like this.”
On 9/24/08 7:00 PM, "Regina Edelman" wrote:
Dear Jordan,
Thank you for your fair answer. If you can spare a little more time with me, please tell Mr. Eggers and Michelle that I very much appreciated the hope they seeded in my ideas. To struggle for a chance with no hope isn't smart, so thank you to abort my hopes sooner than I thought.
Yours,
Regina
And that, dear reader, was my first try to interact in the world of educated man, and so I close this chapter with this open letter:
Dear Reader and Dave,
I remember, at young age, I helped mom wash clothes for the six miserable people who shared my poverty stricken home. I watched the fleas from our covers floating dead in the dirty water after mom finished her hard work. I was happy to see my tormenters killed, but was soon sad to see that in the clothes hung on clothesline for the sun to dry, armies of fleas came back to life, jumping out of the hot blankets, looking for nourishment on my hot blood.
Those parasites marked hard lessons on me. They made so much trouble in my brain that I believed a life without fleas impossible, until I saw that the girls and boys from church and school didn’t have fleas taking a walk in their neck or head like I had. Those children didn’t have to kill any fleas like I did when the fleas bit me unbearably and never ending. I had to hunt the vampires inside my blouse, and bring them to light to burst between the nails of my thumbs, regardless of peoples’ nauseous startled eyes on me. Soon, people targeted me as worthless because of the fleas.
My father had a horrible predestination; his mother cast him away in a sugar cane field on the day he was born. He survived and married mom, but became a drunkard and deserted his family now and then. Mom piously served church several times everyday. She was nervous, angry, and severe, whips in fists. She blamed her misfortunes on my cursed father’s soul, but the truth was that that he was a perfect match to her. Her mulatto father lay wounded in bed, angrily complaining day and night until he died. Europeans hunted his mom in Angola then brought her on board the Navio Negreiro to be sold as slave in Brazil.
“Do you know what the Navio Negreiro was, Regina?” grandma, mom’s mother who also lived in the same flea nest I did, asked once, mockingly.
“No.”
“Worse than any Holocausto!”
“What would Holocausto be, grandma?”
“More atrocity of man against man—because men are powerful fearless beasts who can make liquor, dreadful toys, and crazy ideas such as money to condemn men’s minds anyway they can to affliction and ruin. Once we learn ill, ill will we teach our suckling for generations and generations. There is no salvation for man. We can’t learn. You won’t learn!”
Until she died, grandma hated me since I was six and went to live in that horror house with her. Every time her sick eyes landed on me, she screamed from the top of her lungs, “Bitch in heat! You’ll die too! You’re condemned to the same death sentence as I am!
At the time, I had no idea what bitch in heat could be, and I feared to ask.
When I finally could leave home, finally got mature to understand, and had courage to write about my knowledge and the troubles of barriers of human being to another human being, when I finally had the courage to write in order to try for better life for every being, I encountered you in power, who taught me good lessons, and taught me this strange lesson too; you teach kids.
I don’t believe grandma was right. She was a humiliated woman like I am. I think it is possible to teach better and learn better. It was just too late for her.
Yours,
Regina Edelman
Earth is one country and we must be united …
Get up giant daughter of sun and earth! Get up! Write, if it’s all that can be done for the sake of human comprehension and evolution. We are star suns!
