Veteran Literary Agent Lynn Nesbit to Poets & Writers: "I Miss the Fun"
Lynn Nesbit, the famed literary agent who has represented Tom Wolfe, Donald Barthelme, Jimmy Carter, Michael Crichton, and countless other marquee names, gives a long interview in this month's issue of Poets & Writers.
Lots of highlights in there, but perhaps most striking is the overpowering sense that Things Used to Be Better:
"I say to [former Knopf and New Yorker editor] Bob Gottlieb, who's still a very close personal friend, 'You couldn't stand to be in publishing today.' And he says, 'I know.' It is very corporatized. We all began to think about that in those days. What was going to happen? These big conglomerates, synergy, all that. People began to worry about it..."
More along these lines after the jump.
"Even [former Simon & Schuster CEO] Dick Synder is a lot more colorful than [newly departed Simon & Schuster CEO] Jack Romanos, who is now gone. I mean, they had passion, they cared about literature. Even Dick, who's not an intellectual. He cared. He was a madman. I mean, we need a little bit more.... Who is a madman now in publishing? [Random House chief] Peter Olson, but of a very strange type. I mean, [Morgan [Enterkin, Grove/Atlantic publisher]'s eccentric, [Sonny Mehta, Knopf publisher]'s eccentric. Morgan's less eccentric than he used to be. He's getting very conventional now with the wife and the child. It was just different then."
And finally: "I miss the fun. I tell [colleagues] Tina [Bennett] and Eric [Simonoff]... People are too scared. [Publishing] doesn't attract eccentrics anymore."
Thanks for reporting on this welcomed story about New York publishers and literary agents.
Yes, times have changed. I lived in Flushing, took the No. 7 train to the city, pounded the pavements with a book or two that eventually was looked at by (the original) Scott Meredith, who then tried to sell it. I even walked into his office to give him the manuscripts. I entered MacMillan's offices, also. Ditto for Rinehart (where I actually bought a copy of Philip Wylie's "The Answer" for two bucks from the secretary) in cash, after depositing another manuscript.
Although my novels were rejected, the publishers accepted them graciously. They even mailed them back to me across the river at their own expense.
I don't hold any animosity toward the editors and agents who turned down my stories. I only have fond memories of walking the streets of the city that I loved, trying to get published.
How is it now? Can a first novelist even ENTER a publishing house's building and get past the security guards!!!! Wouldn't they--transfixed by the current administration's War on Terror paranoia--consider the boxed manuscripts he's carrying a suicide bomb and pounce on the unsupecting scribner????
Life goes on. Thanks again for the memories. I loved your little story about the literary agent, with whom I agree strongly.
It's 78 degrees here in Florida, with a bright blue, cloudless sky and a cool breeze blowing over our still-green lawns. This erstwhile New Yorker just reflects over it all as he gazes out the window while he's typing this.