Rick Simonson

Post-BEA One Week Later (A Jane Refrain)
June 10, 2008

Coming out of BEA conventions, it never feels as though there is one conclusive story, book, or impression of things. A week out of Los Angeles, this year, it feels no different. Perhaps a sense of something bigger lurking around the edges, possible portents. A lot of talk of how the election might affect the season, the changes in companies - some idle-enough talk with Sonny Mehta at a dinner suddenly became getting introduced to new Random House head Markus Dohle. I was surprised - having seen him across the way, I'd been guessing him an author unbeknownst to me. The Borders situation, the ABA's move to IndieBound ... and several books, including the down-the-road buzz going for an Abraham Verghese novel to come from Knopf next spring.

Having written a little late last week on Jane Friedman's departure, I'd still have to say that is the most surprising thing - in the utter swiftness of that happening. I think I was trying to see if Jane knew she was on her way when she was there in L.A. More and more - with some reading elsewhere - I tend to think not. She seemed pretty much full-throttle for things to be done. Online catalogs were/are only part of it. The Bob Miller Harper 'Studio' project just getting underway. Her likely involvement with some of Dan Halpern and Ecco's ambitious moves - signing Richard Ford and Tom Robbins, among others, away from longtime publishing homes.

Keeping in mind she really was the CEO of Harper, I have to say I knew of no one else on that level who moved around and through all the levels she did. For all the brave new world notions she embraced, she was/is also quite resolutely old school in terms of people still being central to things, however messy that might sometimes play out.

I remember - it would have been early 2001, I believe - when emigrated Chinese novelist/playwright Gao Xingjian had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was most cited as a playwright when the award was announced, but then it suddenly developed that translator Mabel Lee, working through Harper Australia, was about to finally see published her translation of Gao's epic novel, Soul Mountain. At the time, most HarperAustralia projects that made it to the U.S. made it via Consortium - which handled distribution in the U.S. (we're afraid to ask how or why, but can guess). Jane - and others, no doubt - in the Harper hierarchy here adroitly caught wind of this and made sure that readers here could get their hands on the novel.

In the course of routine conversation with other Harper people about possible author visits, I let on our strong interest in somehow presenting Gao, should he be over. Language wouldn't be an issue - we can and do work with translators. The first time around it was something like, he was only coming to the east coast for a week. In a subsequent call, ostensibly about something else, but coming back to this topic, I laid out that our interest was for any time - down the road, a year henceforth, whenever. The reply I got was one-of-a-kind. The publicist - Jane Beirn - said this had been mentioned at a meeting - and Jane Friedman said, why don't we just send him (Gao) out to Seattle?

Thus, it happened - Gao Xingjian's only West Coast stop on that early 2001 tour - saw him at a packed theatre, in conversation with author Charles Johnson and translated by Mabel Lee. All Jane Friedman's doing.

Then, a year ago - also in that liminal post-BEA time, this time New York. It was the Tuesday following the show. Torrential rains that had started falling Sunday finally ceased after two days. After a morning Random House visit, I'd seen the last of my two post-BEA wandering mates, Paul Yamazaki, off for home ... and set about a walk-Manhattan day that had seen me drop off a requested galley for someone at Grove and return a borrowed umbrella over to an editor friend in the Penguin building, among other stops.

Short of winding the evening up by walking back over to Brooklyn and my own last night's lodging, I was first stopping at a Knopf friend's place - east of the Empire State Building - for a birthday party. It had been spontaneous, the invite, from that morning. I arrived somewhat late in the scheme of things - hearing some had been there and left. But there, very much front and center, was Jane. All show I had kept my eye out for her in the Harper booth - and subway repairs kept getting to the Harper Saturday evening party and dinner impossible. Now here she was - so we had our BEA moment there - talking books, lists, and imprints. That Jane would be there said something to be - a decade along from having been at Knopf. She still kept her friends. She still has kept her friends. As others have noted, I suspect we'll see here somewhere soon again. Meanwhile, I have to find someone somewhere to talk about those catalogs with ... that conversation is not over.    

Posted by Rick Simonson on June 10, 2008 | Comments (4)