_Firsthand, behind-the-scenes information is the kind America likes. Not unmindful of other portions of the equine anatomy, we are the land of the horse’s mouth. Alcoholics write books about alcoholism, drug addicts write books about drug addiction, brothel keepers write books about brothel keeping, so I have written a book about misanthropy.

What is it like being a misanthrope on a daily basis? Much depends upon the kind of people you encounter. Generally speaking, they fall into two categories:those who know what the word means and those who don’t.

The former always ask the same question in properly shocked American tones.

“How can you hate people?”

“Who else is there to hate?”

The others are like the persistent president of a Southern women’s club that wanted to take a literary tour of Europe and offered me a free trip in exchange for being their guide. I put her off politely the first two times she called, but the third time I decided to be blunt.

“I can’t, I’m a misanthrope.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t have to let it cramp your style! My sister-in-law’s a diabetic and she can go anywhere she wants as long as she takes her little kit with her.”

My debut as a misanthrope occurred shortly after I learned to talk. I was being wheeled through a store in my stroller when a child-loving woman exclaimed, “What a darling little girl!” and squatted down in front of me.

“Hello, you sweet thing,” she cooed.

“I doan yike you,” I replied.

Thereafter I latched onto the sentence as children will, and said it to every stranger who crossed my path. My extroverted grandmother always hastened to explain, “She’s just shy”— America’s favorite rationalization for misanthropy and one which I was destined to hear time and time again over the years.

America’s second favorite rationalization for misanthropy is, “She’s been deeply hurt”, often pieced out for greater adverbial effect with “somewhere, sometime, by someone.” I often get this from reviewers who, as citizens of the Republic of Nice, feel guilty about liking my books. A male reviewer, after placing me “in the first rank of American wits,” added: “But like Dorothy Parker, King’s success might well have been purchased with the coin of personal happiness.”

Female reviewers are even more determined to find hidden tragedy. Said one: “Despite the wisdom and clear, clever observations King makes, the reader can’t help but wonder if this woman’s acid wit is the result of a lifelong feeling of rejection cushioned by books, which, if true, is very sad.”

America’s third rationalization for misanthropy is, “Oh, you’re just kidding. ” It goes like this:

“Why don’t you go on the ‘Today Show’?”

“I’d rather corner them in a dungeon and pull the caps off their teeth. The only thing I have in common with those people is a sofa.”

“Oh, you’re just kidding.”

Oh, no I’m not. The person I admire above all others is the man who died on the “Dick Cavett Show.” I forget his name but it doesn’t matter; to a veteran of book-promotion tours who has walked through the valley of the shadow of Happy Talk, he will go down in history as the Man Who Got Even.

Thanks to America’s unflagging optimism, the misanthropic writer has an especially hard row to hoe. My own nemesis is the publishing world’s favorite buzzword, upbeat, used constantly by an editor I once worked with. The most relentlessly cheerful person I have ever met, he seemed to take my temperament as a personal challenge. During the course of our project he enclosed a “Love Is...” cartoon in every letter. He also sent me a Norman Cousins roundup; a profile of Marjorie Holmes; and a syndicated filler called “Heartstrings.”

The novel I wrote for him was never published, possibly because I finally told him that if he had been the editor on Anna Karenina, he would have said, “Leo, please, take out the train.”

By all rights, a misanthrope should be a Luddite. Being in favor of advanced technology is a progressive stance, and progressive people are full of genial beans and high hopes for mankind. But technology is also “cold, ” and therein lies its charm for me.

After vowing that I would never give up my typewriter; that, indeed, I would use a quill or even a stone tablet and a chisel rather than yield to “word processing, ” I was finally forced to buy a computer when a reviewing contract with Newsday stipulated that I had to send in my copy via modem. My new “system” was delivered on the day of the 1987 stock market crash. Computers were being blamed for the calamity so I began to think better of them, and in a week I was hooked. 

I now feel the same way about my new fax. The fax machine is a boon to civilization and Western culture because it helps misanthropes do what we do best: keep the epistolary art alive. A letter is affection at a distance and a fax gets it there quicker, combining the joy of letter writing with the speed of phoning, and leaving a record that would otherwise vanish into the sound waves. Thanks to faxing, I can savor the warmth of communication and human contact without leaving the house or talking to a soul. I can even practice my version of Southern hospitality: standing in front of the fax and watching the paper appear over the edge is like standing at the window watching for company, except I don’t have to say, “Oh, God, here they come.”

Now that high tech has created the growing trend of working at home, the day of the misanthrope is fast approaching. The usual bevy of psychological counselors has sprung up to advise newly minted homeworkers on how to “answer the needs” of family members who “place demands” upon the worker’s time and persist in “invading his space.” Suggestions abound, including drawing little pictures of computers on the children’s calendar, but the handwriting is already on the wall, right up there with the children’s crayon scrawls.

Although the counselors will never admit it, the best way to handle invading family members is to practice the dying art of yelling “goddamnit!” But that is inappropriate, so most attempts to work at home will founder on the shoals of American Nice, leaving the way open for misanthropes to corner the market.

Misanthropes have some admirable if paradoxical virtues. It is no exaggeration to say that we are among the nicest people you are likely to meet—I said meet, not know. Because good manners build sturdy walls, we are exquisitely cordial “ships that pass in the night. ” As long as you remain a stranger we will be your friend forever.

The freemasonry of illness in America has made misanthropes the last Spartans. We ignore pain because our worst nightmare is lying helplessly in a hospital while volunteer strokers serenade us with “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”

Misanthropes are law-abiding to the point of punctiliousness, not because we are plaster saints but because criminals must deal with people constantly. Most crimes require a gift of gab and an ability to inspire trust in the victim, so misanthropes do not become con artists. We do not take hostages because once you have them you can’t let them out of your sight. We do not commit serial murder because we recoil in moral revulsion at the very word: serial. As for child molestation, in order to molest a child you must first be in the same room with a child, and I don’t know how perverts stand it.