Free The Ingredients of Love by Nicolas Barreau

finally have his novel à la Stephen Clarke. And ultimately everyone will be happy. And Bob’s your uncle.”
    Adam clinked his mojito glass against mine. “To Robert Miller! And his novel? Or are you chicken? No risk, no fun. Come on, it’ll be a great lark!” He laughed like a little boy.
    I looked at Adam sitting cheerfully before me. Suddenly everything seemed so simple. And when I thought of my unspectacular salary and my permanent overdraft, the idea of an extra source of income was very tempting. No matter how good this profession was, as an editor, even as an editor in chief, you didn’t exactly earn a massive amount—far from it. Many editors I knew worked as translators in their free time, or produced all kinds of Christmas or other anthologies to bump up their meager pay. The book trade was not the automobile trade. But at least the people had more interesting faces.
    That always struck me when I was standing on the travelator at a book fair and whole phalanxes of chatting, thoughtful, or laughing book people came toward me. There was an animated buzz and flutter about the whole fair and the hall vibrated with millions of thoughts and stories. It was like a mercurial, intelligent, funny, vain, nimble-witted, effusive, over-lively, loquacious, and extremely intellectually active family. And it was a privilege to belong to it.
    Of course, as well as the great publishing characters and personalities who were admired or hated, there were also the glib manager types who maintained that in principle it didn’t matter if you were trading in cans of cola or books, in the end it simply came down to professional marketing and, yes, I suppose, even just a little bit to the content. But in the long run even those guys could not remain untouched by the product they were dealing with every day, and ultimately there was a difference between holding a finished book in your hand rather than a cola can.
    Nowhere else did you meet so many impressive, clever, intriguing, witty, curious, and quick people in one place. Everyone knew everything, and with the words “Have you heard the latest?” all the secrets that the business had to offer were revealed under the seal of strictest secrecy.
    Have you heard the latest? They say Marianne Dauphin’s having an affair with the marketing manager of Garamond—and she’s pregnant. Have you heard the latest? Borani Press is bankrupt and is going to be sold to a perfume company before the end of the year. Have you heard the latest? The editors at Éditions Opale are now writing their own books and Robert Miller is in reality a Frenchman, hahaha!
    I noticed the room beginning to spin around me. In those days you were still allowed to smoke, and at three in the morning Jimmy’s Bar was a uniquely anesthetic combination of smoke, drinks, and voices.
    â€œBut why does it have to be an English name? It’s all getting too complicated for me,” I said lamely.
    â€œOh, Andy, come on! That’s the whole joke! A Parisian writing about Paris—nobody wants that. No, no, it must be a genuine English author who fits all the clichés. British humor, a crazy hobby, if possible a good-looking bachelor with a little dog. I can see him right here in front of me.” He nodded. “Robert Miller is perfect, believe me!”
    â€œThat’s really clever,” I said, impressed, and took a handful of salted almonds.
    Adam knocked the ash off his cigarillo and leaned back in his leather seat. “It’s not clever—it’s brilliant!” he said, just like his favorite cartoon character King Rollo used to do every ten minutes in the TV series of the same name.
    The rest was history. I wrote the book—and it turned out to be easier than I’d thought. Adam prepared the contracts and even contributed a photo of the author—a picture of his brother, two years older than him, a good-natured dentist from Devon