Another Life_ A Memoir of Other People - Michael Korda [90]
As things turned out, no big change actually occurred to me. My salary was not increased significantly, and I stayed in the same small office. But I could not complain that I was being left without work to do, and certainly I was spared that most frustrating of experiences for most neophyte editors: staring at a bare desk, waiting for manuscripts to come in.
CHAPTER 13
By the beginning of 1963, I felt—albeit with a certain innate caution—that I was a full-fledged member of the S&S “family.” I had expected that S&S would be a good place to work until I finally discovered what it was that I really wanted to do, but the thought was gradually entering my mind that I might have already found it. To an extraordinary degree, I felt I had, at last, a stake in S&S, not in the form of ownership, of course, but in the sense that I had joined it as one might have joined a regiment in the British Army: for life.
I was confident enough to move with Casey into a larger apartment and to accept the news that she was pregnant with a calm I would not have felt a year or two earlier. When I called my father to give him the news, I heard him sigh deeply, followed by a long silence. “My poor Miki,” he said, and that was that. It was not, I realized, that Vincent had anything against bringing another child into the world—within reason he was in favor of that—it was that he did not think that Casey and I were even remotely ready for parenthood.
It goes without saying that he was right.
THERE HAD been rumors of change on the floor below us, where Shimkin and his cronies (no other word will do) ran Pocket Books. New blood was said to have been injected into the company, Young Turks were reported to be making their force felt, particularly in the marketing department. Since our own marketing department was not run on anything like scientific, efficient lines, it was felt, no doubt chiefly by Shimkin, that it would do S&S no harm to receive a little advice and help from downstairs.
Shortly afterward, though I was increasingly preoccupied with Casey’s pregnancy, which was turning out to be a difficult one, I began to hear a name repeated over and over again, with various degrees and types of emotion. I did not pay much attention. Editors, by definition, are more interested in what is happening in the lives of their authors and agents than in the other departments of a publishing company, which in part explains why they are seldom chosen for higher management positions and so often fail when they are chosen. Editors should be looking outward, not inward.
With this in mind, it is hardly surprising that I had paid no attention to the name Dick Snyder, which was usually prefaced by, “You’ll never believe what this guy said!” It was apparent that Richard E. Snyder, whoever he might be, was a man of action, and that anywhere he appeared, things changed quickly, if not always smoothly. It did not diminish the awe that surrounded him that nobody knew what his job actually was or even by what authority he appeared mysteriously from time to time at S&S.
Although invisible to most of us, Snyder was reported to have shaken up the Pocket Books sales department, to have breathed new life into Golden Books’ marketing, to have turned up at meetings of the S&S sales department uninvited. He seemed determined to learn all about the hardcover-book business, and he was, by all accounts, a fast and impatient learner. Those who had met him commented on his high level of energy, his quick intelligence, and his sharp temper. He was not, it seemed, a patient or unassuming fellow, and a few bruised feelings were said to have been experienced among the sales and marketing people. This did not cause much grief