“Oooh, Igor, I’ve specially spliced this one with a strain that has successfully placed experimental literary fiction! Quick put it in the incubator!”

How to get a good literary agent? Grow one from stem cells.

After 20 years of dealing with trade publishing, this is the one thing I’ve learned. This is also an application of stem-cell research I can guarantee those in arts and letters will support. Letters to Congress will be written; e-mails to local politicians will be sent. Interestingly, all correspondence will have been spell-checked but remain in need of editing.

Maybe it’s not impossible to get an agent who is responsive, responsible, intelligent, well-read, witty, and competent, even if you’re not selling a book that will immediately be made into a blockbuster Hollywood film. And maybe it’s not impossible for me to flap my arms and circle the moon.

Ask any writers — working authors, especially those known as “midlist,” meaning that they’ve sold books but have not had action-figures based on their characters — about their search for the perfect literary representative, and they will clutch you by the collar and, as their eyes narrow into gimlets, they’ll launch into a saga that makes the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” sound positively catchy.

You’ll hear versions of “Although I sent my manuscript to an agent recommended by a colleague and haven’t heard back from her in 27 months, I’m afraid to send a follow-up e-mail because I’ll sound too pushy”; “My agent said even though he’s never actually read anything I’ve sent him, he’s sure he can place something as soon as he gets around to it and that I’m a valuable member of his circle of authors”; “My agent told me she loved my book, just loved it, and that I shouldn’t take another contract for a different manuscript because this one was a sure-fire-winner until, oops, two months later she read the rest of my book and decided she wouldn’t be able to sell it after all and, umm, terribly sorry about that whole not-taking-the-other-contract thing.”

My favorite illustration of the relationship between writers and agents is as follows: After a difficult day a struggling writer returns to his neighborhood and is shocked to find a cadre of police and fire trucks surrounding the smoldering remains of his house. Explaining who he was he asks, “What happened?” “Well,” one of the officer’s says, “It seems that your agent came by your house earlier today and while he was here he attacked your wife, assaulted your children, beat your dog and burned your house to the ground.” The writer is struck speechless, his jaw hanging open in disbelief…. “My agent came to my house?”

Very funny, right? Ha bloody ha.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been incredibly lucky in my print adventures. The fact that I grew up in Brooklyn and am therefore able both to speak fast and be funny when necessary helped to offer a certain modest non-academic success. And while my academic titles may not have changed the nature of criticism in the 20th-century, I’m proud of them and honored beyond measure when I see them being used in work by younger scholars.

So why am I bitter? Why is “Agents From Stem Cells” my new motto?

When I sent a recent manuscript to the lady (I use the term loosely — and I’d use the term “loosely” too, if permitted) who was meant to be my agent, her response was the “terribly-sorry-about-that-other-contract-thing” one.

When I contacted another agent, one who is really too fancy for me (because her other authors do have action-figures based on their work), she told me about how difficult it was to get any fiction placed in any house these days, how the advances have shrunk over the years, and how hard it is to get any editor to read past 10 pages of a first novel. Evidence of my desperation is that I was cravenly grateful to be told bad news quickly and in a kind voice. I wanted to send her chocolates and beg her to reject me again next week.

A literary life might seem worth dying for, but half the time it simply makes you wish you were dead.

A fabulous syndicated writer, a woman whose name you would know if I were cad enough to reveal it, who is also considered midlist despite her visible and undeniable accomplishments, said this when I first proposed the hatching of agents from stem cells: “Their first words would be: ‘This is a fabulous idea for a book. I can sell this book. I will put you on easy street. Don’t worry, I will take care of everything.’”

She and I are going to stop looking for literary representation and start looking for a Petri dish.

Want us to grow one for you? Fabulous. And we’ll only keep 15 percent.

Image from the album of Photobucket.com user uk-wizard