The legendary editor Robert Gottleib died last week and he was a truly singular figure. The scope of writers he worked with, from John Cheever to John le Carré, Joseph Heller to Salman Rushdie, Bob Dylan to Bill Clinton, is almost impossible to believe. That makes last year’s documentary, Turn Every Page, directed by his daughter, Lizzie Gottlieb, about his relationship with Robert Caro, all the more endearing. He cut an astonishing 350,000 words from Caro’s first book, (my entire book is about 65,000 words).
I recommend his enjoyable memoir, “Avid Reader.” But I really recommend this wonderful, wonderful piece in the Paris Review, an interview with him side by side with writers he worked with. This says as much about writing, editing and where they come together as anything you can read.
A good editor is hard to find and it’s getting harder. Publishing and magazines just don’t have the infrastructure for that sort of nuanced (often under-appreciated) work. I appreciate editing and like working as an editor myself. I’m not sure if this began because my father edited my schoolboy writing fairly aggressively. In our household you were expected to keep your prose clean. Sometimes that meant hurt feelings, serious revisions and staying up past your bedtime to get things right.
One of the greatest editors I’ve worked with was the late Glenn O’Brien. Glenn was accomplished at many things, and certainly not averse to the fine art of self-promotion. But few people realize what a wonderful and generous editor he was, thoughtful, helpful and selfless. He encouraged a lightness in my writing and often added what turned out to be the best joke to stories I wrote. He let me take credit for these but loved when I told him that somebody had complimented his line.
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