Dysfunction For Dollars
''It's not about the books,'' he says. ''My fans are buying the DNA of Dave.'' Dave Pelzer is sitting in the lobby of the Hilton in Daytona Beach, Fla., watching college girls in bikinis run by. He's a vaguely good-looking man, vaguely nerdy, with a squinting, almost spinsterish smile. ''I was shy with girls,'' he says. ''At 21, I had this girl in my room. I poured her a glass of wine, turned around, and she was taking her shirt off. I said, 'I guess it's all right to kiss you.'''
Pelzer, 41, the author of three autobiographical books and one self-help book, is on his spring speaking and book-signing tour. Daytona is one of the bigger cities on his route; most of his stops are in smaller towns. After a speech in the morning in Daytona Beach, then a book signing later that day, he will leave at 1 a.m., drive two hours to Orlando Airport, catch a 6 a.m. flight to Butte, Mont., and then fly to North Platte, Neb.
''I did 'Oprah' in January,'' he says. ''My books got a little bounce, but Oprah's not enough to make the New York Times best-seller list.'' Pelzer is a man who is fairly obsessed with the New York Times best-seller list. His first three books have been on The Times's nonfiction paperback list for a combined total of 448 weeks, which is unprecedented in the paper's record-keeping. The books are protected there, like squalling eaglets that refuse to leave the nest, primarily by bulk sales. These are large single purchases of hundreds or thousands of copies of a book from bookstores or online booksellers. They can significantly inflate an author's sales and are denoted by daggers on the Times list. Late last year, all of Pelzer's books fell off the list; then in late January his first three books miraculously reappeared in almost the identical spots they had held for years.
Pelzer is relentless in peddling his books. He speaks more than 270 days a year, and after many of his talks he sells copies of his books to the crowd assembled there. To watch him work is to be put in mind of those itinerant preachers of the early part of last century. They traveled the dusty back roads of America, put up their revival tents in an open field and then laid on hands and healed, or swindled, their believers. In Pelzer's case, how much he is healing or how much he is swindling is unclear and depends in large part on whether or not you believe the horrific story he has so profitably told and retold and continues, day after day, to tell.
''A Child Called 'It,''' Pelzer's first and biggest book, was published by Health Communications Inc., a publisher of self-help books in Deerfield Beach, Fla. Pelzer claims he got no advance and received net royalties of only 3 to 7 percent, but his contract at H.C.I. showed that he got 15 to 20 percent of the net sale of each book. ''David's always complaining we don't appreciate him,'' says the company's publisher, Peter Vegso. ''David's a professional victim. I haven't a clue if his abuse stories are true, but we kept his book in stock when it wasn't selling. Then Dave got on Montel Williams, and there was an instant demand.''
''A Child Called 'It,''' a curious book told through the eyes of Pelzer as a small child, age 4 to 12, has spent 215 weeks and counting on the best-seller list. Over the course of 160 pages, Pelzer tells how his mother, Catherine, burns David's arm over the kitchen stove, smears a feces-stained diaper in his face, makes him vomit and then eat it, stabs him in the stomach, starves him for 10 days, makes him drink ammonia and separates him from his four brothers, who never witness his abuse.
What makes the book a riveting read for people with a taste for the subject are Pelzer's vivid descriptions of his abuse. The stabbing is dragged out over 13 pages. It begins: ''a sharp pain erupted from just above my stomach . . . a warm sensation flowing from my chest . . . where dark red blood pumped out . . . pain ripped through my ribs and blood seeped through my ragged T-shirt . . . pinched the slit. . . . I saw a yellowish-white substance begin to ooze from the red, angry gash. . . . I wiped away the pus . . . until blood seeped through.''
His second book, ''The Lost Boy'' (which was published by H.C.I. in 1997 and has spent 160 weeks on the list), chronicles Pelzer's experiences in foster homes. These are dull by comparison, so Pelzer devotes significant space in ''The Lost Boy'' to rehashing the abuse incidents from his earlier book, as well as adding some newly remembered scenes, like the time his mother made him eat dog feces. In a recent interview, he offered even more details, saying that it was dog feces ''with worms'' and that his mother had stabbed him not in the stomach but ''in the heart.'' Pelzer calls himself ''a storyteller,'' and it is hard not to read or listen to his stories and think that this description may be a little too on target, that his m.o. is to tell a story, gauge the response to it and then embellish until that story reaches the limits of believability.
After ''The Lost Boy,'' Pelzer left H.C.I., saying he got no respect at the publishing house, and signed two contracts with Dutton (hardcover) and Plume (paperback) that amounted to $800,000. In ''A Man Named Dave'' (his third book, published in 1999, which has spent 73 weeks on the best-seller list), Pelzer moves away from the subject of his childhood and adolescence. He joins the Air Force, begins speaking publicly on child abuse, marries, has a son, divorces and marries Marsha Donohoe, his editor at H.C.I. Still, Pelzer seems either to know what his readers want or is fixated on revisiting his past, and he again rehashes abuse scenes from ''A Child Called 'It.''' He also adds a new wrinkle, self-pity. He is rejected by his fellow airmen and his neighbors, who think of him as ''a pasty white geek'' because he doesn't drink, smoke or take drugs as they do. And his wife, Patsy (Pelzer's pseudonym), constantly belittles his writing. She says of ''A Child Called 'It''': ''That's a depressing title. It's about you, isn't it?''
He responds: ''Let's just say it's a story about a kid who never quit.''
Patsy is quoted in the book as saying the volume is full of garbage and that ''you're a liar.'' After his divorce, Pelzer meets Marsha, who, he writes, ''believed in this book. . . . with all [her] heart.''
In ''Help Yourself,'' Pelzer's most recent book (published in 2000; two months on the business best-seller list before falling off, apparently for good), Pelzer returns yet again to the vivid abuse scenes from his first book, using them as a way of setting up various trite lessons: Don't be a ''pleasaholic.'' Learn to ''psychologically purge.'' ''Life isn't fair.''
The bellman at the Hilton appears with a cart loaded with boxes of Pelzer's books. Pelzer says, ''Thank you, sir,'' and tips the man. He calls all men ''sir,'' he says, because ''people will do anything for you if you call them sir.''
Pelzer opens the boxes and begins signing the books, adding a smiley face to each signature. ''I buy thousands of books a year,'' he says. ''I get a discount.'' He looks up. ''Oh, but I don't do it to pump up my best-seller list,'' he adds. Pelzer is a timid man, always one step from flight. He sees danger in every reaction to what he says and constantly restates himself. If questioned too forcefully on something he doesn't want to talk about, he checks his watch and says, ''I have to go.''
Pelzer frequently purchases his own books for his signings at a discount and then sells them at list price. It is not clear whether these sales alone keep his books on the best-seller lists. The big bookselling chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders, as well as huge stores like Wal-Mart and online sellers like Amazon, refuse to release specific sales numbers. So if they sell 10,000 copies of ''A Child Called 'It''' in a week, there is no way to know whether that was made up of bulk sales or the combined individual sales from all their stores. Still, those 10,000 books would be tallied for best-seller purposes.
Pelzer's wife, Marsha, who is also the vice president of Pelzer's company, D-Esprit, says all the books her husband sells come from ''our personal stock, which we buy from his publishers.'' But Pelzer admits he buys his books from bookstores, and Vegso of H.C.I. says Pelzer buys only a little more than 1,000 copies each of ''A Child Called 'It''' and ''The Lost Boy'' from him in a year.
''He may be buying his books from Amazon,'' says Vegso. ''He's not buying enough from us to cover his speaking engagements.''
The crowds at Pelzer's speaking engagements range from ''300 to 3,000 people,'' Marsha says. ''He speaks two to three times a day. We sell books to 25 percent of the crowd.'' By that accounting, Pelzer is selling between 40,000 and 400,000 of his own books, which does not include, he says, ''the thousands I give away to kids.'' If these numbers are even roughly correct, then Pelzer is singlehandedly keeping his books on the best-seller list, influencing it in the same way that David Vise, author of ''The Bureau and the Mole,'' was accused of doing when he bought 20,000 copies of his book from Barnesandnoble.com.
''We call it back-of-the-room selling,'' says Christine Belleris, H.C.I.'s editorial director. ''When Marsha worked for us, she went to hear David speak, and we heard she was selling his books in the back of the room, which we frown on. Then she quit, and he hired her.''
Pelzer, still signing books, takes out a photo of his wife, an attractive redhead. ''Oh, she's a hard-nosed lady,'' he says. Then he adds: ''I wish this book was in a lot more hands. A psychiatrist said it was deep, like Norman Vincent Peale meets Clint Eastwood. It is the best tome I ever penned. It's being taught at Harvard and was a Pulitzer Prize nominee.''
Pelzer's hardcover publisher, Dutton, has no record of the book being taught at Harvard. As for the Pulitzer nomination, it is true that Dutton submitted two of Pelzer's books to the Pulitzer committee, though that doesn't qualify it as a Pulitzer ''nominee.'' The committee receives 800 unsolicited books a year and accepts them all without critical comment. Theoretically, the committee would accept Pelzer's grocery list as long as he filled out the proper forms and paid a $50 fee. These books are called ''entries or submissions.'' Only the final three, short-listed books can truly be called ''Pulitzer Prize nominees,'' and Pelzer's books have never made that list.
It is almost 11 p.m., and Pelzer is still signing books in the lobby. ''Did you know John Grisham sold his first book out of his truck?'' he says. ''It's honorable. I learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger, too, that it's O.K. to be pluggish. It's about Arnold's DNA. My DNA is Dave. There's a lot of Dave mania when I speak.'' At 11 the next morning, Pelzer is meeting and greeting his fans in the Hilton lobby. They are mostly women, mostly social workers, dressed in pants suits and long summer dresses. Pelzer has spread out his books on a table where a woman is selling them for list price. Pelzer will make a profit, and he will be paid for his speech, although he won't say how much. His fee, the coordinator of the event told me, is $7,000, plus expenses.
In the lecture hall, Pelzer is introduced as ''a survivor of a horrendous childhood, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, whose books have been on the New York Times best-seller list for eight years.''
Pelzer steps to the podium and asks, ''If you're all here, who the hell's taking care of the children?'' The women laugh. Then he does impersonations: Clinton, Jethro from ''The Beverly Hillbillies,'' Dr. Evil and, finally, Arnold, with his thick, Austrian accent. He segues from his comic impersonations (''I'm the Robin Williams of child abuse,'' Pelzer says) into stories of his own abuse and ends with the platitude, ''Everyone has issues. In my mom's day, there was no Oprah to help her purge her issues.''
He is the Elmer Gantry of the 21st century, selling his books, his abuse, his platitudes, the DNA of Dave, an afternoon of laughter, some praise and a nice lunch on a day away from the office. ''You do such good work,'' he says, ''and you get no credit.'' An entire room of teased and bouffant hairdos nods in agreement.
After his speech, Pelzer hugs and kisses his fans in the lobby. His books are almost sold out when Gail Biro picks one up. ''It's unbelievable the child survived,'' she says. (Pelzer refers to himself in his books as ''the child,'' which is what he says his mother called him when she wasn't calling him ''it.'') ''I believed it all,'' she adds. ''But I identify more with Dave than his books.''
Pelzer's fans believe his books, you suspect, because they want to believe in Dave, in his recovery from such unimaginable horrors and in the power of their own compassion. According to Trevor Dolby, his British publisher, ''It's being bought by people who don't normally read books.'' It shows in his writing, which is filled with clichés. He writes that someone's ''mouth nearly fell to the carpet,'' a ''head spun around like a top'' and ''his hands rattled.''
A close reading of Pelzer's books leaves other readers with the impression that they may not be entirely true. Pelzer has an exquisite recall of his abuse, but almost no recall of anything that would authenticate that abuse. His mother was of ''average size and appearance,'' he writes. ''I never could remember the color of her hair or eyes.'' Yet he recalls distinctly his childhood bruises: ''dark circles of purple bruises faded on top of fresh rings of blue bruises.'' He can't explain his mother's psychological motivation for abusing him but not abusing any of his four brothers, other than to say, ''She had not dealt with her unresolved issues.'' And of the six people who might have witnessed his abuse firsthand, Pelzer gives pseudonyms to the four who are still alive -- his brothers. (He refuses to give journalists their real names or phone numbers because, he says, ''I want to protect their privacy.'')
I spoke with one of Pelzer's younger brothers, Stephen, 40, who was stricken with Bell's palsy as a child and whose speech is slightly slurred. Stephen denies his mother abused David or burned him or forced him to eat dog feces. ''Please!'' he says. ''That never happened.'' As a witness to the stabbing incident, Stephen says: ''I saw mom cutting food when David grabbed her arm and got a small cut from the knife. There wasn't even any blood, yet he screamed, 'Mommy stabbed me!'''
Stephen says David wasn't ostracized from the family, but that ''he was very close to me and Robert,'' the oldest brother. ''We were 'The Three Musketeers.' But David had to be the center of attention. He was a hyper, spoiled brat.''
Pelzer's grandmother, Ruth Cole, 92, remembers him as a ''disruptive kid, only interested in himself, with big ideas of grandeur.'' She says he bragged that celebrities, like Chuck Yeager, would be at his and Patsy's wedding. ''But it was just a few family members in the garage,'' she says. ''His books should be in the fiction section.''
Stephen adds that he thinks his brother was taken away from the family because ''he started a fire and was caught shoplifting. He was out of control. Even the Air Force didn't want him.'' Stephen claims Dave was discharged on psychological grounds.
When Pelzer learned that Stephen said this, he refuted it by producing a form from the Department of Veterans Affairs saying he had received an honorable discharge. ''Everyone sees things differently,'' Pelzer says. ''Besides,'' he adds, in a claim that seemed to me to be completely untrue, ''Stephen is semiretarded.''
That evening, Pelzer is driving toward Barnes & Noble. ''I thought my speech was a seven and a half,'' he says of his talk that day. ''You just want to make them happy.'' His cellphone rings. He answers it, nods, says ''Roger!'' and clicks off. ''Marsha used to fantasize, 'Dave Pelzer, No. 1 New York Times best seller,''' he says. He shakes his head. ''Now I don't want to screw up when my mojo's going good.''
Inside Barnes & Noble, the manager, Tina, is nodding into her phone, ''Yes, I understand.'' She hangs up and says to Pelzer, ''Your wife was giving me instructions on how to introduce you.''
Pelzer says, ''Just say, 'H-e-e-e-e-re's D-a-a-a-a-ve!'''
In a corner of the store's vast, well-lighted space, Tina has set up folding chairs facing a table piled high with Pelzer's books. All 40 chairs are occupied. ''Dave's books empower my 13-year-olds because he survived, and they think they can, too,'' Carleen, a social worker, says. A lone man wearing thick-lensed glasses says, ''I found the abuse fascinating.'' Traci, a country-and-western-looking woman, is sitting in the last row, sobbing. ''Dave's an inspiration to me,'' she says. ''I'm in therapy for abuse. 'A Child Called ''It''' was the first book I read in a while.''
Pelzer begins his talk, saying, ''Kids read my books and clean up their room because they're afraid Mrs. Pelzer will baby-sit them.'' The audience laughs. ''I'm not here to plug my books,'' he adds, ''but I've been on the New York Times best-seller list for 200 weeks.''
After he finishes, he takes questions. ''Is anyone going to make a movie of your life?'' a woman wants to know.
''Some heavy hitters are interested,'' he says.
''Like who?'' she asks.
''I can't say.''
Finally, the audience lines up to buy books and chat with Dave. They touch the sleeve of his jacket as if it were the shroud of Turin. ''Oh, look!'' a woman exclaims. ''A smiley face!'' Pelzer stays for hours. He has inexhaustible, almost manic energy. When his last fan is gone, he says, ''I try to make people feel good about themselves.''
Late that evening, Pelzer sits down to dinner in the Hilton dining room. ''I like to eat at the end of the day,'' he says. ''It makes me feel I earned my food. My success comes from hard work. And because I've stayed below the radar screen.'' He finishes, orders a whiskey sour and lights a cigar. He relaxes, as much as a man can who never lets down his guard and whose mojo, as monitored each week by the New York Times best-seller list, is constantly in peril. ''It's not that I'm a control freak,'' Pelzer says. ''I'm scared the other shoe's gonna fall. What if I screw up and lose everything?''
It's after midnight, and Pelzer takes the last few puffs of his cigar. Then he gets up and prepares to hit the road, heading toward Butte and North Platte, where he'll drive down the back roads, unfold his tent and hawk his wares.
