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By Root 869 0

be talked about, books that will create a sensation, books that represent a certain literary style or view of the world, not because these are necessarily profitable but because the attention they receive lends a certain cachet both to the rest of the list and to the reputation of the company itself. In much the same way, in the world of fashion the profit is no longer in the dazzling creations of famous couturiers, whose work is reported on in breathless prose by the media, but in the huge merchandising empires to which the couturiers have lent (or, rather, sold) their names. The dazzle surrounding this or that latest collection makes sense only when you take into account that it is being used to sell perfume, handbags, sunglasses, pens, watches, luggage, and jeans all over the world at outrageous prices. An editor who becomes a celebrity might or might not be profitable—the best are, of course—but lends glamour to what might otherwise be a fairly ordinary list. How much this is worth is hard to estimate, but it’s worth something, and Max knew it. In Bob’s case, most of his books were either modestly or outstandingly profitable, so the literary glamour he provided was not, in fact, costing S&S anything, but it is never easy when a young editor becomes better known than the owner of the company. It is to Max’s credit that he managed to give up the limelight with a certain degree of grace and good humor.

By 1965, however, his health had begun to give way. He had always seemed like an old man, and a rather feeble one at that, but now he was clearly faltering. He saw fewer people, and those whom he saw could hardly fail to notice that his Parkinson’s symptoms were far more pronounced, that he tired easily, that even his sense of humor, however peculiar, was going, giving way to an uneasy sharpness, as is so often the case with men who know they are coming close to the end of their careers. He had seen the future, and it did not include him. It was not just a question of age or health, however; Ray and her son-in-law Ephraim London both knew that the tax laws favored the sale of Max’s share in the company while he was still alive, and they urged him to get out while the going was good. In these days, when even comparatively small companies are acquired and sold for immense amounts of money and when CEOs are commonly given huge stock options and golden parachutes, it seems ludicrous that Schuster’s half of S&S was valued at only two million dollars, but in the 1960s it was the equivalent perhaps of twenty million or more today—enough to give Ray a sense of security for her own future. Whatever Max may have felt—and it was clearly a long and painful decision—he was unable to resist the urgings of his wife, his son-in-law, and his partner. In 1966, it was announced that he had sold his half of the company to Shimkin.

Max’s departure was arranged with a remarkable absence of fanfare, perhaps because it was a humiliating surrender on his part, perhaps simply because he had no desire to put a good face on it. Like so many men—indeed, like Dick Simon, and, eventually, Shimkin—Max’s retirement from the company he had helped to found was a death sentence. He talked of writing a book, of continuing his labors on the Inner Sanctum Library of Basic Books, of traveling, but without conviction. To nobody’s surprise, least of all, I suspect, his own, he was dead within four years.

By one of those transactions understandable only to the business mind, Shimkin, having gained the 50 percent of S&S that he had coveted for years, merged the company with Pocket Books, of which he then owned 46 percent, and ended up owning more than 50 percent of the new, merged corporation, thus not only revenging himself on Max and posthumously on Dick Simon but also right royally screwing his partners in Pocket Books out of their control of that company.

IT WAS hardly to be expected that Shimkin would look with favor on the increasing independence and fame of Bob Gottlieb. A more far-sighted and generous man might have seen how important it was to S&S to