Another Life_ A Memoir of Other People - Michael Korda [164]
I told him why, as quickly as I could. I could see him in my mind’s eye, feet on his desk, leaning as far back as his chair would tilt, the way he always did when he wanted to think. “Anthropology’s a good category,” he said at last. “And all the kids are into drugs and Indians these days. Is anybody else after it?” I told him that Ned Brown had claimed his desk was piled high with offers, but that even if this was true, I was the only publisher who had actually met Castaneda. “Brown is probably lying,” Dick said, “but you never know. Find out what he wants and give it to him. No point in nickel-and-diming him.” He paused. “Don’t come back without it,” he said gruffly, his usual way of wishing me good luck, and hung up.
I called Ned Brown and after a spirited round of bargaining—Don Juan’s recommendation had been spot on, for Ned was not only mean but tenacious, like one of those small terriers with big jaws that can hang on for dear life—I ended up owning the hardcover rights to Castaneda’s book for about twice what I had wanted to pay. I returned a day or two later to New York to try to convince a skeptical sales force that we should put a major effort behind it.
Fortunately for me, Dick did not believe in democracy. His view was that the sales department existed to sell the books they were given, and he was not interested in opinions from the floor at sales conferences. When, on rare occasions, the sales director or one of the reps offered an opinion about the merits of a book, he was liable to snap, “Are you an editor? No. Just sell the goddamn thing.” In this case, his confidence in my judgment (or, more important, in his judgment of me) was well justified. Our edition of The Teachings of Don Juan, despite a certain skepticism at S&S, pole-vaulted onto the best-seller list, and for the next ten years, Castaneda, in book after book, became a staple in our lives, one of the props on which the success of the new, post-Gottlieb S&S rested.
As the years went by, Carlos’s view of sorcery became darker and more complex, particularly after he finished his apprenticeship and became a full-fledged sorcerer himself, but he remained, personally, as cheerful as ever, and we became close friends. He had an uncanny knack for guessing when I was in trouble or needed help, and at such moments called from a telephone booth in Flagstaff or, sometimes, downstairs in the lobby, “Michael! It’s Carlos! Are you feeling powerful today?” His voice was enough to cheer me up, even at the worst of times, and did, indeed, have the effect of making me feel more powerful, or in control of events, so I had no doubts about Carlos’s sorcerous abilities. Many years later, when a friend of mine from New Mexico, Rod Barker, insisted on taking a set of galleys of his first book up to Shiprock, at the heart of the Navajo reservation, “The Big Rez,” and having a medicine man cast a spell over them with different colors of pollen, I was not surprised when the book was greeted with good reviews. Carlos had taught me, if nothing else, the importance of getting on the good side of the spirit world.
IN THE material world—what with Jacqueline Susann, Ronnie Delderfield, and Carlos Castaneda—we had made enough of a recovery for Shimkin, however ungenerous and suspicious his nature, to reward Dick by giving him, at last, firm and complete authority over S&S. He swiftly set about reconstructing it in his own image. Schwed found himself shorn of authority, Dick’s office was enlarged and glamorized, and the long hunt for the right combination of tough, vigorous, ambitious, well-connected editors, which was to consume the next twenty-five years of Dick’s publishing career and give S&S a reputation as a kind of roller-coaster ride for senior editors, began. Dick wanted an all-star team, and he was willing to pay for it—in salary, perks, inflated titles, and liberal