Another Life_ A Memoir of Other People - Michael Korda [136]
No recognizable duties or benefits came with it. In theory, the editor in chief was merely primus inter pares, first among equals, with no particular authority over the other editors. Henry had wisely never attempted to exercise any such authority, and while Bob did, he managed it with such delicacy and grace and by such exquisite indirection and subtlety that, except for the end results, it was seldom visible. A managing editor performed the onerous task of keeping track of every book S&S had under contract and trying to pry out from the editors the truth about exactly what the state of progress was of each title on their list; an executive editor (myself at this time) dealt with the paperwork necessary to put through contracts and such routine housekeeping as the assistants’ raises; and a secretary of the editorial board (also myself) kept the minutes of the weekly editorial meeting and drew up the agenda. What the editor in chief did was unclear, and at times the title had been allowed to fall into abeyance, since that seemed simpler (and less conducive of bad feelings in the editorial department) than to let one editor lord it over the others.
Even though the time had not yet arrived when Dick and I were to get together in the evenings over a drink in his office to invent meaningless titles in order to lure senior editorial talent from other houses to S&S (“Vice president and associate publisher?” “Chairman emeritus of the editorial board?” “Senior editor and corporate vice president?”), nobody with their head screwed on tight could possibly believe that an editor’s title held any genuine significance. Then, as now, editors were judged by the books they acquired, the authors on their list, and the number of best-sellers they published every year. Whereas titles in the corporate world usually defined not only a person’s function but his or her place in the pecking order—one knew, after all, what the treasurer or the vice president of human resources or manufacturing did, in principle, and who reported to whom—titles when given to editors usually mean nothing and are likely to have been awarded either in lieu of a raise or to stave off some crisis of self-doubt on the part of the editor. Occasional attempts were made at S&S, as at most publishing houses, to bolster the self-esteem of those editors who had titles by giving them, for example, engraved business cards and stationery, as opposed to the ordinary printed kind, but most people regarded the whole business, quite rightly, as something of a swindle, which explains perhaps why the idea of being editor in chief wasn’t a burning ambition of mine at the time.
Still, the idea of somebody else being editor in chief wasn’t something I wanted to see, particularly since a high-powered person coming to S&S from elsewhere might either regard me as a threat or expect me to report to him or her—something that had never been the case between me and Bob.
Gradually, it dawned on me that this was a case in which symbolism was all. The moment Bob left, his office was left empty, the door shut and locked, as if it were a shrine. Since it was by far the largest and nicest editorial office, I staked my claim to it by arguing that whatever the company chose to do about Bob’s title, I was certainly next in line for his office and that it was both foolish and depressing to the staff to leave it empty. To my surprise, they gave in (although they made it clear that it was only for the time being and that I might have to move out if a new person was hired to replace Bob), which might not have been the case had I demanded the title or a significant raise. I moved into it immediately and soon