Stet by Diana Athill (2000)

This memoir of editorship and small publishing is interesting to me for a particular reason. Athill was in on the beginning of both Andre Deutsch and Allan Wingate (Deutsch's earlier pseudonymous company), so her experience dates back to the late 40s and the postwar boom in small publishers dedicated to literary work. This was a very particular world of "arty" houses, often based in side streets in old shopfronts or homes, with only relatively few staff, and a LOT of personality going on! By that I mean there were larger than life types, scurrilous types, brazen types well in evidence, displaying their education and erudition, forming a balance to those among the staff who were less obvious in their 'diverting' capacities. I came into publishing on the very last tail-ends of this period, but employed by one of the most noticeable of these big personalities, Marion Boyars, so had a taste of this world as it lay dying. The way Athill speaks of the contrapuntal sway of how a big personality would cause a ruction, and how the lesser ones might have to pussyfoot around to save a situation, or, in the attempt, sometimes make things worse (!) is very familiar. Also her record of dealing with authors, with sudden affronts at a misplaced analytical word, or continuing to publish works even though the author wasn't making any money, or the awkwardness of having to reject one because it didn't cut the mustard, or huge editing jobs to turn works toward the sun, strikes many chords. I don't remember Marion mentioning Diana Athill, but they must have known each other. Marion had a typical response to Andre Deutsch, Athill's 'employer' (she was actually a fellow director) - WHAT a DIFFICULT man! Of course, completely ignoring the fact (unaware?) that she was a good way to also being so herself! My guess is that Deutsch's reaction to her may have been similar. One thing that Athill mentions also rang a huge bell: she speaks of the women of the industry keeping things going while the men peacocked themselves about. In Marion's version of what occurred at Calder and Boyars, she was the one holding things together, once she'd served her apprenticeship to John Calder in the very early 60s. He'd go off swanning around, deeply involved in his theatre festivals and 'scouting' for more works (read 'entertaining himself'), whilst she kept the company moving and got things done. I'm sure, despite Marion's tendency to exaggeration, that this analysis was not far from the truth. I wonder if she and Diana commiserated with each other, and geed each other up? It would have depended on personality; Athill speaks of a particular author here (I can't now remember which one) who was either on the Calder and Boyars list, or very similar to many who were, as being dangerous - by implication, personally as well as in the artistic sense. Perhaps Diana was too 'careful' and (confessedly) upper middle class for the relationship to truly bloom. She certainly is an exemplar of that tight spot where the brave new world of educated liberation met the narrowness of the old way: her editors at Granta should not have allowed her to 'explain' Trinidad and Tobago as 'two islands, one country' in a note, as though the reader were likely to be unaware. But her talk of shepherding authors and their works through the locks without getting sunk, and her candid discussion of the blooming, and dying, of relationships that had long since moved beyond the strict terms of publication, and, of course, the gossip of it all, are really enjoyable reading.