publishing news

Tim O'Connor (tim@roughdraft.org)
Tue, 17 Mar 1998 00:10:36 -0500

A recent copy of Publishers Weekly carried a news column that mentioned two
interesting pieces of news.  Doubleday (The House That John Grisham Built)
had a book under contract by Paul Alexander -- a new biography of J.D.
Salinger that had reaped the author an advance of $100,000.  [Thanks to
Renee Zuckerbrot for pointing out the PW article of March 9, page 19.]

The book was cancelled, with the abrupt explanation that the draft
submitted was "not editorially acceptable."  Significantly or not, the book
was killed the day the Joyce Maynard article appeared in New York magazine.
And who was the author of that magazine article?  Yes: Paul Alexander.

It's hard to know whether this is good news or bad.   The Joyce Maynard
article in New York magazine, early in February, was rather unpleasant to
many readers, considered by some to be an appalling bit of journalism.

However, it still remains a challenge to see a first-rate biography of the
Salinger by a genuine biographer.  Not an intrusive, lurid, tacky,
tabloid-style book, but a reasonable and mature examination of the
circumstances that made Salinger the kind of writer he was.

Alexander's agents are shopping it around, but nearly every house is leery
of legal entanglements, after the catastrophic judicial ruling against Ian
Hamilton and Random House regarding "In Search of J.D. Salinger."  Whatever
the merits of the biography or its author, most historians, archivists, and
biographers I've spoken with agree that the Random House case has had a
chilling effect on the art of biography, since no sane biographer or
publisher wants to have distribution of a book halted at the last moment,
or be called into court so that the author can literally count the number
of words quoted from source material.

Maynard's book is still scheduled for the winter of 1999, though many
observers doubt that she will be quoting from his letters to her, and will
therefore be less likely to find herself blocked by an adverse court ruling.

--tim o'connor