Max Perkins Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  I - The Real Thing

  II - Paradise

  III - Provenance

  IV - Branching Out

  V - A New House

  VI - Companions

  VII - A Man of Character

  VIII - A Little Honest Help

  PART TWO

  IX - Crises of Confidence

  X - Mentor

  XI - Lamentations

  XII - The Sexes

  XIII - Triumphs over Time

  PART THREE

  XIV - Going Home Again

  XV - Critical Times

  XVI - The Letter

  XVII - A Sad Farewell

  XVIII - By the Wind Grieved

  PART FOUR

  XIX - To Everything a Season

  XX - Diminutions

  XXI - Portrait in Gray and Black

  XXII - A Toss of the Hat

  Acknowledgements

  Sources and Notes

  Index

  “Berg’s whole narrative is first-rate-filled with humor and feeling. Max would have published it in a minute.”—Newsweek

  “A labor of love, one pursued by Berg with a single-minded devotion ... The result, a long and comprehensive but never tedious book, completely justifies all the effort ... A very large accomplishment.”

  —Jonathan Yardley, The Miami Herald

  “A fully achieved biography of a man whose career and life were marvels of self-effacement. It gives a wealth of insight into the creative process.”

  —Peter Davison, The New York Times Book Review

  “A welcome biography ... a definitive work.”

  —St. Louis Globe-Democrat

  “A. Scott Berg’s biography is, surprisingly, the first major study of this legendary figure, and it would thus be welcome for that reason alone. But this superb book is so meticulously researched, so richly detailed, so beautifully ‘cultured,’ that it will undoubtedly become an indispensable account of modern literary life in America, as well as a highly rewarding portrait of a man previously hidden behind the scenes ... While lamenting a lack of space to describe fully the incredibly fascinating detail that marks so much of this outstanding book, we must recommend A. Scott Berg’s biography of Max Perkins as one of the most important, most readable books of the year.” “—The Dallas Morning News

  “Beautifully written ... an exciting portrait of an era.”

  —Howard Kissell, Women’s Wear Daily

  “A delightful biography, rich in literary anecdotes, and a mine of advice for writers and editors.”—Publishers Weekly

  “It is a pity that Perkins could not see the manuscript of his biography. He enjoyed finding promising young writers, and Berg, 28, is one of that small group ... Although Perkins would have been embarrassed by the attention, Berg’s tribute would have touched him.”—Time

  “A. Scott Berg’s Max Perkins: Editor of Genius seems such a natural that it makes you wonder why no one ever thought of writing such a book before. [Among] the virtues of this biography is that Perkins emerges from the shadows ... The details enrich the legend.”—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

  “Max Perkins was the best of the best. This book brings him back alive.”

  —Erskine Caldwell

  “A book about Maxwell Perkins? Of course! Why didn’t someone think of it before? ... Berg has done very well ... It’s a fascinating and illuminating story.” —Chicago Sun-Times

  “As complete a Max Perkins as we will ever need. It’s an extraordinary vivid portrait ... Berg documents the Perkins-Wolfe season in hell as no one else ever has.”—Webster Schott, The Washington Post Book World

  “All his life and since his death, Max Perkins has remained a kind of shadow figure ... but now, with A. Scott Berg’s comprehensive and readable biography, he’s sure to come into his own ... There’s not a speck of pedantry in Berg’s book and I for one thank him for it.”—Judson Hand, New York Daily News

  “Berg has done a fine job of assembling and organizing a vast amount of fascinating material.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Though he is not of Perkins‘s generation, Berg has a real feel for it and for Perkins, and does justice to him and his geniuses.”—Wilmingron Sunday News Journal

  “Berg makes the major revelation of a long, discreet, and (perhaps regretfully) platonic love affair between Max and Elizabeth Lemmon ... Their correspondence enriches the biography immeasurably ... This is a significant book.” —Larry Swindell, The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “Extraordinary ... Berg brings Perkins and his writers to life ... With access to the most intimate and detailed files from the publishers, Berg has drawn together a massive book that Perkins would have been proud to edit. There is a good story about someone on nearly every page.”—The Houston Post

  “Berg displays immense talent in his writing, keeping it dramatic, suspenseful and lively, yet never losing sight of the fact that this is a serious work. For those who are avid readers of biographies, this book will come as a delightful and rewarding surprise. For those students of literature and those who labor in it, the comments and writings of Perkins will stand out as beacons of light in a sometimes darkened world ... With this book alone Berg now appears to be one of the major new literary talents of the last quarter of the 20th century.”—San Diego Union

  “Wolfe, Fitzgerald and Hemingway scholars will find this book a valued source of new information and a highly readable, warm and enjoyable biography. Those who are not scholars will find this biography flows like a novel.”—The Charlotte Observer

  “One reads these pages with awe and admiration for both their subject and for the remarkable young biographer.”—Baltimore Evening Sun

  “Perkins turns out to have been as fascinating, dark, complex, and sad as any of his golden boys. A lovely book about the age of giants and the extraordinary man in the shadows behind them.”—Russell Baker

  “A. Scott Berg, who came to Perkins through an early enthusiasm for Fitzgerald, has gone deeply into his subject, and done so with attention to detail and something like love ... Superb biography ... Perkins’s fruitful and tortuous relationship with Wolfe is brilliantly described.”—Washington Star

  “This is the first major study of Perkins, and Berg has done a masterful job ... both a fascinating chronicle of Perkins’s contribution to American literature and a collection of wonderful anecdotes ... a fine book.”—Newsday

  “A sympathetic, full-bodied treatment of Perkins.”—Richmond News Leader

  “Nothing previously published will prepare the reader for this stunning new biography. Berg’s depth of research is simply astounding. He not only brings Perkins vividly on stage, but also all the major figures in an exciting and pivotal era of American letters ... a sweeping, landmark biography ... superb.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

  “Magnificent ... Berg vividly demonstrates how Perkins changed the conception of an editor’s function and how he thereby came to influence American literary taste as no other man for 30 years.”—Boston Herald American

  “Packed with diverting anecdotes.”—The New Yorker

  “Splendid ... fills a gaping void in the history of American literature in the first half of this century ... His greatest achievement, aside from showing us exactly how a truly great editor functioned, is to remind those of us who love books even remotely as much as Perkins, what we owe him.”—Kansas City Star

  “[Berg] has marshalled much material to bring the editor to life, to prove that lonely, hard-drinking, eccentric Perkins was, as the book’s subtitle says, ‘an editor of genius.”’

  —Doris Grumbach, Saturday Review


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  Copyright © 1978 by A. Scott Berg

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  PRINTING HISTORY

  Riverhead trade paperback edition: June 1997

  Berkley trade paperback edition: September 2008

  eISBN : 978-1-101-49430-1

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the Riverhead trade paperback edition as follows:

  Berg, A. Scott (Andrew Scott)

  Max Perkins, editor of genius / A. Scott Berg.—1st Riverhead

  trade pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  Originally published: New York : Dutton, © 1978.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-49430-1

  1. Perkins, Maxwell E. (Maxwell Evarts), 1884-1947. 2. Editors—

  United States—Biography. 3. Book editors—United States—

  Biography. I. Title.

  PN149.9.P4B4 1997

  070.4’1’092—dc21

  [B] 96-52584

  CIP

  Most Berkley Books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or educational use. Special books, or book excerpts, can also be created to fit specific needs.

  For details, write: Special Markets, The Berkley Publishing Group, 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

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  To my friend

  Carlos Baker

  and

  my parents

  Barbara and Richard Berg

  Through the unheeding many he did move, A splendour among shadows, a bright blot Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

  —SHELLEY, “Sonnet”

  PART ONE

  I

  The Real Thing

  Shortly after six o‘clock on a rainy March evening in 1946, a slender, gray-haired man sat in his favorite bar, the Ritz, finishing the last of several martinis. Finding himself adequately fortified for the ordeal ahead, he paid the check, got up, and pulled on his coat and hat. A well-stuffed briefcase in one hand and an umbrella in the other, he left the bar and ventured into the downpour drenching mid-Manhattan. He headed west toward a small storefront on Forty-third Street, several blocks away.

  Inside the storefront, thirty young men and women were awaiting him. They were students in an extension course on book publishing which New York University had asked Kenneth D. McCormick, editor-in-chief of Doubleday & Company, to conduct. All were eager to find a foothold in publishing and were attending the weekly seminars to increase their chances. On most evenings there were a few latecomers, but tonight, McCormick noted, every student was on hand and seated by the stroke of six. McCormick knew why. This evening’s lecture was on book editing, and he had persuaded the most respected, most influential book editor in America to “give a few words on the subject.”

  Maxwell Evarts Perkins was unknown to the general public, but to people in the world of books he was a major figure, a kind of hero. For he was the consummate editor. As a young man he had discovered great new talents—such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe—and had staked his career on them, defying the established tastes of the earlier generation and revolutionizing American literature. He had been associated with one firm, Charles Scribner’s Sons, for thirty-six years, and during this time, no editor at any house even approached his record for finding gifted authors and getting them into print. Several of McCormick’s students had confessed to him that it was the brilliant example of Perkins that had attracted them to publishing.

  McCormick called the class to order, thumping the collapsible card table in front of him with the palm of his hand, and began the session by describing the job of editor. It was not, he said, as it once had been, confined mainly to correcting spelling and punctuation. Rather, it was to know what to publish, how to get it, and what to do to help it achieve the largest readership. At all this, said McCormick, Max Perkins was unsurpassed. His literary judgment was original and exceedingly astute, and he was famous for his ability to inspire an author to produce the best that was in him or her. More a friend to his authors than a taskmaster, he aided them in every way. He helped them structure their books, if help was needed; thought up titles, invented plots; he served as psychoanalyst, lovelorn adviser, marriage counselor, career manager, money-lender. Few editors before him had done so much work on manuscripts, yet he was always faithful to his credo, “The book belongs to the author.”

  In some ways, McCormick suggested, Perkins was unlikely for his profession: He was a terrible speller, his punctuation was idiosyncratic, and when it came to reading, he was by his own admission “slow as an ox.” But he treated literature as a matter of life and death. He once wrote Thomas Wolfe: “There could be nothing so important as a book can be.”

  Partly because Perkins was the preeminent editor of his day, partly because many of his authors were celebrities, and partly because Perkins himself was somewhat eccentric, innumerable legends had sprung up about him, most of them rooted in truth. Everyone in Kenneth McCormick’s class had heard at least one breathless version of how Perkins had discovered F. Scott Fitzgerald; or of how Scott’s wife, Zelda, at the wheel of Scott’s automobile, had once driven the editor into Long Island Sound; or of how Perkins had made Scribners lend Fitzgerald many thousands of dollars and had rescued him from his breakdown. It was said that Perkins had agreed to publish Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, The Sun Also Rises, sight unseen, then had to fight to keep his job when the manuscript arrived because it contained off-color language. Another favorite Perkins story concerned his confrontation with his ultraconservative publisher, Charles Scribner, over the four-letter words in Hemingway’s second novel, A Farewell to Arms. Perkins was said to have jotted the troublesome words he wanted to discuss—shit, fuck, and piss—on his desk calendar, without regard to the calendar’s heading: “Things to Do Today.” Old Scribner purportedly noticed the list and remarked to Perkins that he was in great trouble if he needed to remind himself to do those things.

  Many stories about Perkins dealt with the untamed writing and temperament of Thomas Wolfe. It was said that as Wolfe wrote Of Time and the River he leaned his six-and-a-half-foot frame against his refrigerator and used the appliance’s top for a desk, casting each completed page into a wooden crate without even rereading
it. Eventually, it was said, three husky men carted the heavily laden box to Perkins, who somehow shaped the outpouring into books. Everyone in McCormick’s class had also heard about Maxwell Perkins’s hat, a battered fedora, which he was reputed to wear all day long, indoors and out, removing it from his head only before going to bed.

  As McCormick talked, the legend himself approached the shop on Forty-third Street and quietly entered. McCormick looked up, and seeing a stooped figure in the door at the rear, cut himself off in mid-sentence to welcome the visitor. The class turned to get their first glimpse of America’s greatest editor.

  He was sixty-one years old, stood five feet ten inches, and weighed 150 pounds. The umbrella he carried seemed to have offered him little protection—he was dripping wet, and his hat drooped over his ears. A pinkish glow suffused Perkins’s long, narrow face, softening the prominences. The face was aligned upon a strong, rubicund nose, straight almost to the end, where it curved down like a beak. His eyes were a blue pastel. Wolfe had once written that they were “full of a strange misty light, a kind of far weather of the sea in them, eyes of a New England sailor long months outbound for China on a clipper ship, with something drowned, sea-sunken in them.”