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| JP Morgan Library |
While recently traveling, I read two different, interesting books: Robert Gottlieb’s Avid Reader and a historical novel, unusual as it was written by two people, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, The Personal Librarian.
The former was recommended to me in 2017 by a friend of my son Jonathan. He knew I’d find it particularly relevant as Gottlieb was a leading trade publisher (very different than my publishing world though) and my literary interests. Apparently, I put the book on my Amazon wish list, and finally was able to find a used copy through an Amazon partner. It turned out to be a “withdrawn” copy from the Public Library District of Columbia, a labyrinth path to languish on my shelves until recently. It’s also ironic as the protagonist of the other book, The Personal Librarian, was from the District of Columbia. At the core of each work are books and publishing.
My wife recommended the latter, an unusual tale about the remarkable woman, Bella da Costa Greene a person of color who passed for white and lived her life that way, dedicated to building the J.P Morgan Library, in effect becoming a partner in that endeavor with the most powerful man in the world at the time. Although historically accurate, many of the personal details had to be imagined; hence, a work of historical fiction.
Both books were redolent of aspects of my past. At one time I was nearly enrolled in Pratt’s Master of Library Science program but life had different plans for me, starting in publishing right out of college, which leads me to the more personal work (for me) Gottlieb’s memoir, Avid Reader.
His career in trade publishing a little parallels mine in academic publishing, both of us compulsive workers, both loving our jobs which we considered a way of life more than working itself. He was ten years older than I, quickly rising to Simon & Schuster’s editor-in-chief, then occupying that same position becoming president of Alfred A. Knopf. He then served as the Editor of The New Yorker returning to Knopf as “editor ex officio.”
If our paths crossed at all it was at the American Bookseller’s Association or PEN. He did not bother attending the Frankfurt Bookfair as I did. My kind of publishing required me there to negotiate co-publishing rights with English publishers and develop the international marketing of our own publications. Plenty of trade publishers sought out the Frankfurt Bookfair (for the parties alone), but Gottlieb was dedicated to the art of editing and had no time for the usual trade frivolities, such as those parties and long two martini lunches, etc. He was an editor in the mold of Maxwell Perkins and Gordon Lish (with whom he worked).
Among the literary luminaries he worked with was his own discovery (and Gottlieb was only 26 years old then), Joseph Heller, and his then titled novel “Catch 18.” By the time it was being set in type, though, the best- selling Leon Uris was coming out with Mila 18 so Gottlieb and team scrambled for a new title, and it was suggested that “Catch-11”might be used but then there was the fear that it would be confused with the film Ocean’s 11. Heller suggested 14 but Gottlieb considered it “flavorless” and with time growing short, spent a sleepless night and finally came up with Catch-22. He called Heller: ‘”Joe, I’ve got it! Twenty-two! It’s even funnier than eighteen!’ Obviously the notion that one number was funnier than another number was a classic example of self-delusion, but we wanted to be deluded.”
But when I read that he considered Heller’s Something Happened one of the greatest novels of its time (I agree), it was then I resolved to write him upon completion of his autobiography to say how much I admired his work and his work ethic. What are the odds that a book I bought years ago, and just recently picked up to read, should be written by someone who passed away while I was reading it? I was heartbroken about missing the opportunity. He had an uncanny ability to communicate his life in such a personal voice. I feel as if he was talking to me. It is a rare autobiography which lacks self-censorship (the greatest fault of my own memoir in process), vital, a man who loved, loved what he did.
My old, beaten clothbound copy of Something Happened has followed us from house to house in Connecticut and now Florida. Perhaps the time has come to put it on my “to be read (again)” list, a list that simply is like the expanding universe.
What a life and career. He was indeed an avid reader as a kid. It helps that he was brilliant, and a quintessential New Yorker, who took advantage of all the cultural opportunities of the city. In fact, in his later years became involved in the world of ballet, befriending Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine. He became a ballet critic and he thought his attraction to the art was because it is all about movement, a world of difference from his literary life. My wife’s favorite ballet company of the last 20 years has been the Miami City Ballet and its very continued existence was due to Gottlieb’s efforts and his friendship with Edward Villella, the company’s founder (Gottlieb maintained a home in Miami as well as an apartment in Paris).
He sometimes would pull all-nighters on behalf of his authors to read their new works or to edit ones submitted for publishing. He took no vacations and long holiday weekends meant he could get more work done.
Again comparing my own publishing life, I always felt that the more I got done, the more there was to do. My family knew my favorite working day of the week was Mondays. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Gottlieb said "I hated dinners out. Restaurants didn’t appeal to me. I didn’t go to movies or parties, play sports or watch sports. I literally didn’t know how to turn on the TV." He saw himself in service of the author; authors, coworkers and friends were all part of his extended family. He did have a family, married twice, the second marriage the charm (as was mine), to Maria Tucci the actress.
As I was finishing the book, he died at the age at 92. I lamented his death and the lost opportunity of writing to him. In his own voice, he makes a good point though: “I attempt not to think about death, but there’s no avoiding the fact that we are all the pre-dead. I try not to brood about my lessening, physical forces, and try to avoid what I’m sure is the number one killer: stress. Luckily, I don’t use up psychic energy and living in regret. What’s the point? Or in worrying about the future. Why encourage anxiety ? The present is hard enough.”
Speaking of anxiety, indeed, can one imagine the day-to-day grind of living a life of self-imposed duplicity, such as the one portrayed in The Personal Librarian?
Bryan daily eagle and pilot 28 Feb 1913
This work of historical fiction by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray is about Belle da Costa Greene’s personal and professional life. As J. P. Morgan's “personal” librarian, she helped build the incredible J.P. Morgan Library, JPM, many years her elder, never realized she was black. She passed for white and that's how she had to lead her life, to protect her position, one of enormous responsibility as she represented JPM at auctions, operating completely autonomously. It was a disadvantage enough being a woman in that world of antiquarian collecting and preservation. It was also the way she protected her mother and siblings, who she supported throughout her life. One can imagine the ensuing complications and her perpetual fear of being “outted.”
Passing for white estranged her from her father, Richard Theodore Greener, Harvard College's first Black graduate. He became Dean of Howard University’s Law School and a tireless advocate of equal rights during the Reconstruction. This became a schism in his family. His wife wanted her and her children to have the benefits of being thought of as white, fabricating a tale about Portuguese lineage and changing their name from Greener to Greene to disassociate them from him.
Belle finally found a way to embrace her father’s teachings and at the same time creating a research library second to none when, after JP Morgan’s death, she convinced his son Jack to make the library a gift to New York City. She thought he could approve, putting these treasures indirectly in the hands of the people.
This gave her some closure and it took the writing team of the experienced novelist, Marie Benedict, and a bestselling writer, Victoria Christopher Murray to imagine the complete tale. In the process, they became best friends and the joy they shared researching and writing shows on every page.
Avid Reader and The Personal Librarian, as different as they are, share that commonality, the joy of books. That was my world and how lucky I was to be a small part of it.
