Robert Caro has published six books thus far, including his semi-memoir Working. His first was about Robert Moses and the reshaping of New York city. The next four were about Lyndon Johnson. These five books took him over five decades, averaging one book a decade. More than being just profiles of individuals, they are a study of power and how men who wield it operate whether they are elected to office or not. Caro is now eighty-eight years old, and one hopes that he survives long enough to finish his last book on LBJ.
Robert Gottlieb was his editor on at least five books and he would have edited the last of the LBJ series as well. Gottlieb died in 2023 at ninety-two, and that book is still due. When it is out, I have no doubt who it will be dedicated to. While Caro is why I know of Gottlieb, the title is why I picked up this biography. I thought it would be about his reading life, but it is not. Well, it is in a way, because as an editor his job was to read closely. But there is little here about how all this reading informed his interior life except a stray comment here and there.
Instead, my primary takeaway from the book is that it is easier to be a workaholic when one loves what one does. To read and to be paid for it! That’s the life. Gottlieb’s grandparents, from both sides, made their way from Eastern Europe, no doubt escaping anti-semitism though he doesn’t comment on it. His father worked his way out of poverty and put himself through school. Gottlieb’s parents provided him with a stable middle class upbringing in New York. He was an introverted kid who spent all his time at the library or with books at home. Then he found himself in Columbia University, surrounded by people who loved the same books as him and shared his snobberies. This was a stroke of good luck. If one’s closest circle consists of poets and writers, what else does one become? After a brief stay at Cambridge, he was back in New York, with an infant and a wife in tow, searching for a job. After many months living off his friends, he finds one at Simon and Schuster, and his career is determined. He will spend the next sixty odd years as an editor and publisher.
Amongst the star publishers (Sonny Mehta for example), Gottlieb probably has edited or published more literary best sellers, Pulitzer prize, and Noble prize winners than any other. How did he get there? His biography doesn’t indicate any preternatural talent other than a voracious need to devour books and a capacity for work. He worked on weekends, and through nights. He did not take vacations. He turned manuscripts around overnight which made agents happy, and authors even happier. “Why put off reading a manuscript or doing an editorial job? You’re going to have to do it sooner or later, and it doesn’t take more time to do it right away than after putting it off for whatever neurotic reason.”
He went all in on each publication. One book he discovered and championed early in his career catapulted him to stardom. This was Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. That led to more authors and agents seeking him - Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, VS Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, John le Carré, Anthony Burgess, Robert Caro, Lauren Bacall, Janet Malcolm, Michael Crichton, you name it. Each successful launch opened new doors. His ability to make his clients friends helped, no doubt. Many of them, in his telling, became family. His network at Knopf led to a brief stay at The New Yorker which in turn made his fortune. His interest in dance and record of publishing books on the subject also opened doors to the New York City Ballet (NYCB), on whose board he served for many years. An association with NYCB meant a big deal for Gottlieb, because he could finally work with one of his idols, George Balanchine, one of the most influential choreographers of twentieth century. What he says about Balanchine applies just as well to himself: “When there was something practical to be discussed or decided, he was not only quick, sharp, and decisive, he was obviously in his element. Several times when I nervously called him at home about some crisis, he was far from irritated. He welcomed problems, I concluded, so that he could have the satisfaction of dealing with them.” One is rewarded for showing agency and solving problems. Most problems, at their core, are people and coordination problems.
While it did not seem as such when he was child, Gottlieb was at his happiest collaborating as part of a relatively small group of congenial, like-minded people. It is a great fortune to stumble on an occupation that fits one’s aptitude, to be a work horse, and to have a long and healthy life.
One of the unexpected pleasures of reading a book like this is not just learning new anecdotes about famous writers, but encountering the occasional bitchiness that comes through the writing when trying to set the record straight. Here is his response to Michael Korda's biography from 1999, Another Life:
Michael in his memoir reported Peter’s resentment of me, as though we were rivals. If we were, I didn’t know it, because I just didn’t think that way. In fact, I enthusiastically handed over to him his most successful writer, the unique memoirist-raconteur Alexander King, whose first book—Mine Enemy Grows Older (his Enemy was Himself)—ratcheted up to number one on all bestseller lists, spurred on by Alex’s many appearances on the Jack Paar show.
On Kat Hepburn:
But the exchange we had that I remember most vividly was on the phone one morning when a blizzard had piled up snow so high that New York was shut down. Kate’s secretary and cook came in every morning, but she was alone in the house at night, and on this morning they were not going to make it in. She was old, and I decided to call her, to see if she needed anything. The phone rang and rang, and I was beginning to worry when she finally answered. “Sorry it took me so long,” she said, catching her breath. “I was up on the roof shoveling the snow off. Very important to do. If you don’t know how, I can come over and do it for you.” What a dame! Or, at least, what a performance. I was fortunate to have been long gone from Knopf when it published her fuller memoir, Me, a thorough mess of a book. Yet at least the title was accurate: From first to last she was about Me.
His relationship with David Cornwell aka John le Carré:
At some point, David had his agent insert into our latest contract that I would take him out to at least one first-rate restaurant when he was in New York; he was tired of our sandwich lunches in my office and the tacky ethnic places I preferred for dinner. I was less amused by this than he was.
And when John le Carré parts ways with Knopf:
Our extremely successful relationship had extended itself with The Russia House when I was at The New Yorker, but I could tell that he was restless, and when he dedicated it to me I sensed it was a gesture meant to smooth the way for him to move on — David rarely did things without a complicated reason; overthinking was his habit of mind.