‘I’m to be an editor. A book editor.’ When the entire family gasped, I added: ‘At Kinetic Press. One of the best.’
Uncle Judah cried: ‘This house is blessed.’
Blushing, I warned: ‘Well, not exactly an editor. Not yet. I start at the bottom and work my way up.’
‘How else?’ Uncle Judah asked, and my mother broke out a bottle of inexpensive wine, and toasts were drunk to the new publisher of Kinetic Press.
I really did start at the bottom, serving in a kind of secretarial pool, now working in one office where an employee was absent, now in another, but always in some function relating to the making of books. As I worked I strove to accomplish two goals: to make my superiors realize that here was an exceptional recruit and to learn from them as much as possible about publishing. Gradually many in the big building began to say: ‘That new kid, you can depend on her.’
During one exciting week I served as a replacement in the small, crowded office of Miss Kennelly, whose door had the sign SUBSIDIARY RIGHTS. Her job was to be like an old-time peddler, hawking her wares, except that she remained in her office, telephoning anyone who might conceivably want to purchase from Kinetic the rights to publish or use a Kinetic book in some special way. Sales to paperback manufacturers, magazines, book clubs and newspaper serializations all fell under Miss Kennelly’s supervision, and, with the changes that were overtaking the book business, her role was becoming increasingly important.
During the five days I helped, I listened as Miss Kennelly participated over the telephone in a bidding war for book-club rights to a Kinetic romance that used nineteenth-century techniques to tell a twentieth-century story involving two competent modern women, a bewildered man and a fifteen-year-old girl caught in the vortex of tangled relationships. In the midst of frantic phone calls in which Miss Kennelly seemed to be the only one maintaining her cool, a secondary competition began over the right to reprint the same book, which seemed sure to be a big winner. In the midst of the dual crisis Miss Kennelly, intensely occupied with book clubs, gestured to me: ‘Handle the paperback people. Tell them there’ll be a decision by four-thirty this afternoon.’
I leaped into the fray, fending off agitated callers with statements like: ‘The author is aware that you’ve taken his last two books and is mighty proud of that fact. Naturally, he inclines toward letting you have this one, too, but there are considerations about which he doesn’t know—complicated ones. We’ll get it sorted out by four-thirty. But we do need to know one important thing. Have you given us your absolute top bid?’
Like a fisherman keeping four baited hooks in a stream, I tried to keep my four possible purchasers nibbling until Miss Kennelly finished with the book clubs and grabbed the other phone: ‘Yes, Miss Carstain, my able assistant Miss Marmelstein did give you such figures, but there happen to be others that have just surfaced. She did not hold back anything relevant. She just didn’t have the latest data. Our big brass has reached new conclusions that modify everything.’
At the end of the hectic day in which this sharp-minded juggler had earned Kinetic nearly a quarter of a million dollars by her adroit management of rights, her office was crowded with officials who praised her coolheadedness. Mr. MacBain, head of Kinetic, said: ‘What we appreciate, Miss Kennelly, is how you pick one winner from the pack but manage to retain the friendship of the others, so that we can go back to them next week with another deal.’
The smiling Irishwoman, savoring the accolades, said: ‘At the climax I couldn’t have handled all the bidders without the help of this young person, Shirley Marmelstein. You’d have thought she was an old pro.’
Mr. MacBain smiled at me and asked: ‘What department are you in?’ and I said brightly: ‘I’m a floater. Learning the secret of what makes a good book a salable one.’
‘If you find out, please tell me.’
When the party broke, Miss Kennelly, realizing that neither she nor I could unwind after the excitement, said: ‘Let’s celebrate. My treat,’ and as we perched on stools in a bar frequented by editors of various houses, I heard for the first time the knowing chatter of young men and women engaged in my new profession: ‘Miss Kennelly! I hear you hit the trifecta!’ A reporter who covered publishing for The New York Times stopped by to say: ‘I’m not asking for figures, but I would like to quote you as saying that while you didn’t want to gloat, you were delighted, since this meant that Tricorn Anxieties is assured of a huge best-sellerdom.’ Miss Kennelly beamed: ‘I said it, word for word, as you just gave it.’ The Times man toasted her: ‘You’ll go far.’ But as he was about to move on she tugged his sleeve. ‘An interesting sidebar is this bright gal, Shirley Marmelstein. She was catapulted right into the middle of this frenzy, first week on the job, and the success of the pocketbook part of the sale is largely due to her improvised skill.’
The reporter asked for additional facts, then said: ‘Wait right here till I call my photographer,’ and two days later I was able to show my parents the dramatic story NOVICE HELPS SWING MASSIVE DEAL, accompanied by my photograph. The column dealt primarily with the role that was increasingly being played in New York publishing by bright young women, and I was cited as an example.
When the week ended and I had to move on to other assignments, Miss Kennelly told me: ‘You’re the best I’ve ever had. I’d ask for you permanently, but the budget won’t allow it.’ She said: ‘Keep your eye on this job if I should ever move on.’
‘Are you leaving?’
‘I’ve engineered some spectacular sales under difficult circumstances. Other houses know who was responsible.’ She dropped that subject and said: ‘In one house after another, across New York, there are young women like me who started as nothing, wound up handling the automatic paperwork associated with subsidiary rights. In those days we were paper-pushers only, filling the blanks in the final deal, and if we did well the company made five thousand dollars, if poorly, only four thousand dollars. But you heard the figures for my day last Wednesday. A fortune. So now the big companies find that their drab little secretaries who handle subsidiary rights have become some of the most powerful kids in the industry. If you ever get a chance to move into this office, grab it. The future lies here.’
My immediate future was far less dramatic and infinitely less important. At all publishers a constant barrage of unsolicited manuscripts arrives in the mail—‘over the transom’ is the phrase—and because almost none of these have merit, they fall into what is usually called ‘the slush pile,’ that forbidding heap of cardboard boxes, each containing a novel. Almost none of the manuscripts ever appears as a finished book. In fact, most of them would never even reach the attention of a senior editor, for those well-paid experts cannot waste their time on such unpromising material. Protracted studies at various houses have proved that only one manuscript in nine hundred that come in over the transom ever becomes a book, but case histories abound of how manuscripts that were rejected by half a dozen firms, or even more, have become best-sellers. So the hunt through the garbage continues.
At Kinetic a Jewish editor had named the accumulation of these pathetic works Mount Dreck, and now I was in charge. Assigned to a reception desk on the fourth floor, I answered phones, took notes for the editors, did typing when called upon, and faced each morning when I came to work that mountain of boxes, each containing someone’s dream. I would lift one box after another, glance briefly at its contents, shudder, and, if return postage had been included, place a formal rejection slip in the box and mail it back to the sender. If there was no postage, the box and its contents were tossed into a bin that was emptied each night into the huge trash receptacles waiting in the basement.
Like previous beginners who had excavated on Mount Dreck, I began with a determination to find diamonds in the junk. I vowed I would give every unknown who had mailed his or her novel to Kinetic a fair chance at publication, so it was with an anticipation of discovery that I lifted each box from the pile on the floor at the right-hand side o
f my desk, but as soon as I saw that the manuscript was hopeless, I placed it in the growing pile at the left-hand side, from where it would either be mailed back or be tossed into the trash. My experience was not a happy one, for most of the manuscripts were so dreadful that a look at one page was sufficient, and on some mornings when I was especially alert I might inspect fifty novels, finding them equally deplorable. At noontime I would feel remorse for having destroyed the hopes of so many, and after lunch I would refuse to read further, since the experience was so frustrating.
I learned several tricks in sampling the junk. If the first page contained more than one misspelled word, I became suspicious, even though I was aware that some fine writers, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, were miserable spellers. If a manuscript had bizarre punctuation, I rejected it, and I was especially hard on any that was coy or unintentionally juvenile. A typical sentence justifying instant rejection might read:
His mother-in-law was a fine woman (!) who he loved dearly (Ha-ha!) but she was such a batleax that he tryed to get her out of the house as soon as posibell.
More often the manuscript was technically respectable, but the story was so poorly told that no amount of editing could give it a chance for publication.
However, occasionally I would come upon one that would make me say to myself: It’s better than I could have done, and then I was obligated to draft a short typed note summarizing the reasons why I thought someone higher in the editorial hierarchy should look at this one, and when the messenger came on her next round, she would carry that box to the desk of some editor who would cast a more practiced eye on it and even, perhaps, write to the author suggesting a conference. Then I would feel the thrill of being in the process of actually selecting and publishing books.
But when at the close of 1964 I had been in charge of Mount Dreck for several months, Miss Wilmerding at personnel summoned me to a review meeting and opened with a startling statement: ‘Miss Marmelstein, we hear only the finest reports about you. Three different departments in which you’ve worked, including subsidiary rights, where you did the fine job the Times wrote about, have said they’d be glad to have you back when an opening occurred. We’ll remember that. But there has been one complaint, voiced by three different editors who liked your work otherwise.’
When I leaned forward, honestly eager to learn about my deficiency, Miss Wilmerding said: ‘When you read the crud at Mount Dreck, you’re sending on to the editors about three times as many manuscripts for them to worry about as you should. Remember what I told you: publishers find one reasonably acceptable manuscript in nine hundred. You’re sending forward one in every hundred.’
When I looked astonished at both the reprimand and its cause, Miss Wilmerding said: ‘Don’t lose your enthusiasm. What you must do is sharpen your critical judgment. Ration yourself to three in nine hundred, and sooner or later you’ll spot a winner. And by then the editors will have learned to respect your judgment.’
As I was about to leave, well chastened, Miss Wilmerding stopped me: ‘Sit down, please,’ and the way she smiled at me proved that in some way I did not understand she liked me: ‘We all feel you have a bright future with this house, and Mr. MacBain thinks it’s time to make you eligible for our advanced study program. Here’s a list of seminars on publishing given each winter in New York. Columbia, N.Y.U. and the New School. If anyone took all those courses, she’d know far more than I or any of our editors do.’
I studied the titles of the courses and saw at least seven I would have profited from, but I had to confess: ‘Those fees are pretty steep,’ and Miss Wilmerding said: ‘But we pay the fees,’ and for the moment I could not speak.
That night I almost flew from the subway exit to our apartment in the Bronx, and when I got there I ran right past my mother and threw myself into Uncle Judah’s arms: ‘Everything you told me has come true. Because I read the books you got me after I broke my arm, and studied the way you said, they decided at Kinetic to try to make me a real editor.’
‘You told us you already were.’
‘Well, I lied. What I really am is a glorified secretary, once removed.’ I had not the courage to confess that I was marooned on Mount Dreck.
‘So what’s different?’
‘They’re sending me to night school! To study editing.’
He stopped playing solitaire, shoved the cards aside and asked: ‘Is that significant?’ and I said: ‘Very,’ and he asked: ‘How are you going to pay for all this?’ and I shouted: ‘They pay!’
To Uncle Judah those two simple words made a universe of difference: ‘In this world, everyone is ready to tell you what you should do, on your money. Advice is cheap. But when they tell you what to do and add “We’ll pay,” that means something,’ and we spent half an hour dissecting the hierarchy at Kinetic, with me explaining who really controlled destinies and what promotions I could logically expect as the years passed. At least six times he interrupted: ‘And you’re sure they pay for all this?’ When I gave my final assurance, he leaped from his chair, took my hands and waltzed me around the room, shouting to my mother, who had been listening: ‘She’s going to be an editor!’
This fact had a profound effect on him, for he was older now and more inclined toward having sentimental feelings about family.
He said: ‘It’s like you were my daughter, and I want to warn you about one thing. Sometimes you talk like an illiterate Jewish girl, no family background. The Marmelsteins have always been educated people, and I want you to clean up your pronunciation.’
I had not even a hint of what he was talking about, but then he began imitating the way I pronounced that cluster of words so difficult for people with my Bronx background: singing, clinging, winging, bringing. I was aware that I, like other Jewish girls from the Bronx, pronounced the ng in these words the way one pronounced it in linger—that is, ling-ger. There is no way, using the English alphabet, to indicate exactly how such words as singing should be pronounced. And the way a girl like me pronounced singing made it something like sing-gingg, with a g sound preceding the second syllable, instead of the correct sing-ing.
At any rate, Uncle Judah commanded me to stop pronouncing the words that way: ‘When you say that, Shirl, I mean Shirley, it lights beacon fires for anyone who hears: “Ah, here’s that nice Jewish girl from the Bronx.” With one word you’ve imprisoned yourself inside a category.’
What he said almost frightened me, because with the brief taste I’d had of promotion within a corporation, I did not want to stigmatize myself in any way: ‘How do I correct it?’
‘I had the problem when I wanted to become your father’s outside man, selling to the important stores. With a name like Marmelstein I was Jewish enough and clearly from the Bronx. I didn’t need a calling card like sing-gingg.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I made up a nonsense formula that I said over and over as I rode the subway to work: “The birds were singing and they went winging, bringing music to the clinging vines.” You sing that yourself maybe five thousand times, you grow so scared of those words that you become almost afraid to say them. And when you do say them, you say them right.’
He had other phrases that I, as practically the vice president of Kinetic, must drop: ‘Just quit saying all right already. It’s not correct,’ and he outlawed numerous other Jewish idioms.
‘But I am Jewish,’ I protested. ‘And proud of it.’
‘Me too, but half the buyers I worked with were not. I wanted to give them one less reason for saying no. And while we’re on the subject of words, if you’re smart you’ll start right now to learn as many new ones as you can—big words—unusual ones—popular words of the moment: paraplegic, parameter, peripheral. Talk big, you look big.’
He also thought I ought to dress in a more managerial style, and in this field he was an expert, and kept a collection of perhaps a dozen glossy magazines that had published special issues on clothes for businesswomen. One that caught my eye, and apparently his
, too, for he referred to it several times, was a magazine devoted entirely to what its editors called ‘the executive look,’ and after I had studied its pages I got an idea of what he was trying to say: ‘A businesswoman can acquire the proper look without spending an extra cent if she uses her eye and her brain.’
On three successive Saturdays he took me to shops where former customers of his sold women’s wear and asked the owners to instruct me about fabrics and design, and about suits that gave maximum value. During these visits he allowed me to buy nothing, but when my instruction period ended he asked my mother to prepare a special Saturday-night dinner so that he could make a little speech: ‘Now that we have a high-toned business executive in our family, I want her to be properly dressed as she climbs the corporate ladder.’ I started to say: Hey, I’m just a gal in charge of Mount Dreck, but fortunately I kept my mouth shut, and he continued: ‘Tonight I’m handing over to our young genius a fund I’ve been collecting for some time. On Monday after work, she and I will start to buy her what I call “an executive wardrobe,” bottom prices, top quality.’ And he handed me a check for three hundred dollars.
I can see him now, leading me to one shop after another and telling the owner: ‘My niece is on the executive track in a big corporation and I want you to show her two, three suits, highest quality, lowest cost.’ At the end of the week I had a wardrobe that Joan Crawford would have envied, with sixty dollars left over: ‘Put that aside for a wedding dress.’
Two weeks later that dear man, who had given my life such dramatic turns for the better, was dead. He left an estate of a few suits—top quality, bottom price—a shelf of books, and less than fifty dollars. But when I wore to work the attractive clothes he had bought me, so trimly tailored and of such excellent material, people in general began to take me more seriously.
The work in that winter of 1965 became the kind that in later years of a gratifying career one can look back on as the experience that made the difference. Kinetic, sensing they might have a winner in me, agreed to pay my tuition for two different courses, one at Columbia and one at N.Y.U.
The Novel Page 13