For outsiders, normal people not involved or obsessed in the biz, the agent's reaction to seeing the co-worker is disgusting. But I suppose for insiders, it's an authentic beat. Whatever. I found the the most interesting part of the dialogue exchange to be Kaufman's ironic reversal . On page 5 he praises the book as "great, sprawling New Yorker stuff, and I'd want to remain true to that.." and 45 pages later he's lamenting " I can't structure this. It's that sprawling New Yorker shit."

Very good catch, pgronk. What a great callback that demonstrates in two lines clearly the level of deconstruction going on with Charlie's character.