ON WORK AND MEANING

(and that noose dangling over your neck)

Why do we do what we do, and why do some of us do it for so long, beyond a time when the work has ceased to be fulfilling? Why does our tether to a company and industry remain strong? Why can’t some of us see beyond the borders of our jobs? Why do our imaginations hem us in to where we are instead of where we can go? Why are we placing limits on ourselves? We are a nation based on freedoms (mostly), and yet, when it comes to work, we often find ourselves imprisoned.¹

This is especially true of book publishing and its connected industries, where people are incapable of leaving their station unless they are assassinated on Zoom² or left to die at their desks. Even our press celebrates the departed by devoting excessive column inches to their life stories, as if we (they/them) cannot imagine a world beyond the insular one we (they/them) have created for ourselves, this profession of luminous art, these companies devoted to writers and their work, in whose hallowed hallways we have found meaning and purpose.

Indeed, our affinity for and tether to this industry is so strong that most of us don’t see the noose when it has been dangling over our heads for months. This is not an advice column, but I am offering some nonetheless: endings should never come as a surprise. Personally, or professionally.

***

I’ve had a few endings come as a surprise. Mostly deaths. And one involving a client.

***

For many of us, work is nominally connected to identity: a presentation of who we are in the world. That definition gives our lives meaning, and work, purpose. This symbiosis continues for as long as you’re on the payroll. But after that employment cord is cut, things get dicey. I’ve had a lot of conversations with industry colleagues who were jettisoned from jobs they held for decades, and they all seem forlorn.

I find this curious. I mean, you are who you are. With a job. Or without.

And so, this question: Who are you?

***

I have struggled with this question myself. I have struggled because I often feel as if I have failed at many of the things I have tried to become.

***

In my experience, work has mostly been enjoyable and intermittently fulfilling, but I was never ecstatic about it the way some people were (are). Editors have a tendency towards the ecstatic, which is why I never slept with one (inevitably, I would come up short in the read). Professional ecstasy is a rare thing, but Knopf, under Sonny’s leadership, had something akin to it, mostly because of Sonny’s ability to mesmerize. People outside of Knopf often thought of it as a cult.

***

What is it about that place?

I don’t know.

People never leave.

Yup.

It’s like Mehta has them in a fucking trance.

He who casts his Dharmic spells.

You ever meet with him?

Yes.

Kind of scary.

His silences, you mean?

Yes. BEAT. They’re enveloping.

***

I used to tell publishing colleagues that if McKinsey were to come in and do an audit of Knopf, they’d shut the place down. Knopf, fundamentally, was dysfunctional, at least when you template the business school essentials required to establish a strong workplace culture – communication, transparency, emphasis on work-life balance, whiteboards, mission statements, feedback loops, team building exercises, affirmation rituals, trust falls, masturbatory praise when a book hits the bestseller list, etc. There was, um, none of that. Books were expected to hit the list. And when they didn’t, Sonny would call a post-mortem (“What the fuck happened?”) He could be grumpy and mean, Sonny, when books didn’t work. And this is an industry where a lot of books don’t work (never more so than now).

***

The fact that we were a profit center at PRH for so long drove executives within the company crazy. Sonny may not have been popular, but he was effective for most of his tenure, until he got sick and was on the long edge of dying. I think most people were sad when he died. But I know a few people who weren’t. They saw opportunity in his absence.

***

Mehta isn’t well.

Guy can’t even walk anymore.

How long do you think he has?

Jeezus, Ethan. Let’s not go there.

Hey, it’s just business.

C’mon. He lifted our game. He may be a prick, but he’s a consummate publisher.

I don’t know. Brown guy comes along at the right time. He got lucky.

What about Stieg Larsson?

A sub-agent recommended those Girl books to him.

E L James?

That was Messitte.

Donna Tartt?

Fisketjon.

Crichton?

Gottlieb.

Still.

I’m just sayin’ the pipeline is gonna change once he’s out of the picture.

***

Our industry is no longer a profession of gentlemen.

***

I was always imagining a way out. I stuck around for longer than I should have because the pay was good enough and I liked having an office door I could shut and a desk I could put my feet up on.

***

If there is a word to explain the success of Knopf under Sonny’s leadership, it is this: belief. People believed in the mission of the company. The mission did not exist on a whiteboard but was instead imbued within the culture: to publish good books well. This was a somewhat abbreviated version of Alfred’s original Borzoi Credo, which said, among other things:

I believe that a publisher's imprint means something.

I believe that good books should be well made.

I believe that a publisher has a moral as well as a commercial obligation to his authors to try in every way to promote the sales of their books, to keep them in print, and to enhance his author's prestige.³

I believe that the basic need of the book business is not Madison Avenue ballyhoo, but more booksellers who love and understand books and who can communicate their enthusiasm to a waiting audience.

I believe that magazines, movies, television, and radio will never replace good books.

***

Alfred, alas, did not anticipate the advent of telephones with screens.

***

Sonny knew how to motivate people. His technique involved staring and silence. And brevity in correspondence. The longest email I ever received from Sonny was two sentences. I have been trying to piece together some of our former correspondence without success (No one at PRH responds to my emails. They are like reporters and producers in that sense.) Mostly, I am trying to understand my friendship with Sonny, and if it was indeed that.

***

The most expansive conversation I ever had with Sonny was when we were working on his comments for the Perkins Award. We sat down in a recording studio for several hours. One of the questions I asked him was about his nickname:

.

***

My identity – the work image I presented to the world – was a disguise. I projected confidence – I was mostly insecure (still am). I was combative because it was an era when combativeness would serve you well, but I never felt good about it. If I had a belief system, it was that hard work and good sex mattered. Those are still core beliefs, though I recently had an exchange with a client that tested my belief in the value of hard work.

***

Is that it?

What?

The result.

I’m not sure what result you are referring to.

That’s because there are no results. Where are my reviews? Where are my interviews? Where is my coverage in the New York Times?

The New York Times seems to be limiting their book coverage to stories about Robert Caro and Sally Rooney. BEAT. We have secured a few reviews and interviews.

Seriously? We’ve sold 2,000 books.

It’s a tough market for literary fiction. BEAT. There are books out there that have sold fewer.

For the amount of money I’m paying you, I could’ve purchased more books than we’ve sold and possibly gotten on the bestseller list.

Maybe that’s a recommendation I should offer to clients.

Yeah well maybe you fucking should.

Are you angry? BEAT. I mean, you sound angry.

Of course I’m angry.

Anger is not a productive emotion. We worked hard. We pushed and prodded. The results are what they are.

***

Until next time,

Kill Your Darlings

PS: A reader writes, “You’re a prisoner of the past.” They’re not wrong.

1. I am talking about a subset of the population that is in the fortunate position of being able to choose the work that they do.

2. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 40,000 industry jobs have been shed over the past three decades (though to those of us working in the industry, it seems like the last three years). Thanking my friends at Lunch for this correction.

3. I’m not sure writers today feel publishers are trying “in every way to promote the sales of their books.”