I made notes about the manuscripts in the same notebook in which I would later rewrite sections of The Vixen, the Patriot, and the Fanatic. I still have the child's composition book with its marbleized black-and-white cover. These are some of my summaries and responses:

The Igloo Lover: Arctic explorer infatuated with an Inuit woman "lent" by husband; couple dies on separate ice floes.

I, Barbarian: "Have I passed the test, O Hunt Master?"

The Bridge and the Pyramid: Dissolving suburban marriage. Autobiographical? Neglected wife finds portal to a past life: Cleopatra.

The Second Mrs. Windfall: Rebecca with names changed.

Mary M.: Magdalene loves Jesus. Unrequited.

I began each manuscript in a state of hope that curdled into disappointment, then boredom, annoyance, anger, then remorse for the anger that the writer didn't deserve. Why had these people made me disappoint them? Then I'd feel bad for feeling that way. It wasn't their fault that life was unfair, that talent and luck were unequally distributed.

I typed the personalized form letters on the battered Smith Corona that I'd got from the firm when I reported that Julia's typewriter had died from overwork. I explained to an old man named Andrew, a longtime employee who signed checks and dispersed petty cash, that I'd brought the company typewriter to the repair shop. I'd been willing to pay for it to be fixed, out of my own pocket, but the repairman told me that it was hopeless. I was afraid that the part about my offering to pay would reveal that I was lying, but Andrew was hardly listening, and that same day one of the mailroom guys lugged in the replacement typewriter.

* * *

I often dozed off in my office. A syrupy warmth would seep up my spine, weighing down my eyelids, pulling my chin toward my chest. How delicious it felt to surrender where no one saw or cared, where my mother wouldn't wake me and beg me to be patient.

My dreams were pitifully transparent. Storms at sea, shipwrecks. The Titanic. I was alone in a raft. Above me the ocean liner, like a sleek Art Deco whale, tipped and vanished under the water, then reemerged as a Viking longboat, its deck crowded with warriors demanding their enemies' hearts and livers. Until that ship too hit an iceberg, with a boom and then another boom and then—actually ...

Knocking. Someone was knocking on my office door.

I stowed the remains of the chicken sandwich that my mother had so lovingly assembled (dry white meat, white bread, mustard) in the top drawer of my desk just as my boss, Warren Landry, bounded in without knocking again.

Standing in my doorway with his arms braced against both sides, Warren was partly backlit by the low-wattage bulbs in the corridor. He had a Scrooge-like obsession with keeping our electric bills low. His white hair haloed him like a Renaissance apostle, and the costly wool of his dark gray suit gave off a pale luminescent shimmer. He was a few years older than my parents, but he belonged to another species that defied middle age to stay handsome, vital, irresistible to women. I'd spent my first paychecks on a new suit and tie, cheap versions of Warren's, or what I imagined Warren would wear if the world we knew ended and he no longer had any money.

Often, on his way back from lunch, Warren lurched down the hall, all jutting elbows and knees, chatting up the typing pool, leaning on the front desk, stepping into the offices of people he liked.

My dreams were pitifully transparent. Storms at sea, shipwrecks. The Titanic. I was alone in a raft. Above me the ocean liner, like a sleek Art Deco whale, tipped and vanished under the water, then reemerged as a Viking longboat, its deck crowded with warriors demanding their enemies' hearts and livers. Until that ship too hit an iceberg, with a boom and then another boom and then—actually ...

Excerpted from The Vixen by Francine Prose. Copyright © 2021 by Francine Prose. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.