The Sunday Gentleman Read Free Page B

form that does not please him entirely.
    Yet, in all honesty, I must state that complete integrity can be maintained by a book author only when the publisher needs him more than he needs the publisher. If an author has written a biography or novel on his own, and his publisher or publisher’s editor insists that he radically change portions of it to suit the publisher’s or editor’s own critical and creative ideas, the author must often comply in order to see his beloved book in print. Of course, it is usually not quite that cut-and-dried: Writers are often permitted to retain material the publishers do not like simply because of publishers’ traditional respect for the individuality and mystique of the creative artist; and often writers will eagerly make most changes suggested to them because they are insecure about the quality of what they have written, or because they feel that an experienced editor’s suggestions may actually improve their work.
    Compromises in the publishing field, minimal though they be, do exist, for reasons of an editor’s personal prejudices or a publisher’s economic concerns. After spending years preparing and writing my first published book, The Fabulous Originals , and receiving an advance of $1,000 and a beribboned contract from Alfred A. Knopf, I was stunned when he forced me to surrender a degree of my creative autonomy before my book went to press, a surrender demanded on economic grounds only. I was stunned because I had regarded Mr. Knopf as entirely a creative publisher with respect only for the well-written word. I had not realized that he was of necessity also a tough and shrewd businessman, like most other publishers. Even though my book was not unduly long, Mr. Knopf insisted that he wanted it considerably shorter, in order to make its publication cheaper and its profits (the equivalent of 9 1/2 percent of the retail price was to be mine, I was reminded) greater. It was my first about-to-be-published book. Fearful that it might not reach the printer if I defended the Word against the Profit Ledger, I conceded. Of the volume’s nine chapters, I was forced to pull out one chapter in its entirety, and cut out two-fifths of another. In short, I needed this publisher more than he needed me, and against my better judgment, I compromised.
    Years later, when I had a good number of books in print and they were being widely read, and numerous publishers desired me more than I desired them, my new publisher suggested that my novel. The Prize , might be improved if I made two major changes in the manuscript before it went to press. These were not arrogant demands, but well-intentioned suggestions for literary improvement. After giving the two changes considerable thought, I rejected the first because I felt it was wrong, that it tampered with my own vision of the story, that the concession would make the book less the novel I had conceived. However, I agreed that the publisher’s second suggested change was an intelligent one, worth considering as a definite improvement, and I agreed to do some rewriting. The important difference is that I was not being forced to compromise a single paragraph as a condition of publication, and the decision to rewrite was, in the end, my own. In no other field of writing have I ever encountered such absolute freedom.
    Because full-time creative independence was a primary drive in my writing career, once I had achieved it with books I never again, as I have said, had any desire to return to magazine writing. Since the writing of my first published book, I have written only four magazine articles, but none of these are articles such as those I used to write six days a week, or such as those in this collection that I wrote on the seventh day. My recent articles are subjective rather than objective, and they concern the creation of my books and were inspired by an occasional need to defend or explain my novels. The only exception, perhaps, is the most recent