Durant, Nikos Kazantzakis, Bernard Berenson, Bertrand Russell, and the rest of Schuster’s worthies. Kaplan was anxious to carve out a bit of fame for himself as a writer (which he shortly did, with a Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Mark Twain).
Schuster was a snob of a gentle, old-fashioned kind. He liked the people who worked closely with him to be “connected” to somebody—Kaplan had been Eddie Bernays’s son-in-law; I was Sir Alexander Korda’s nephew. He also, not unnaturally, liked people who were interested in the kind of books that he liked: history, philosophy, new editions of the classics. Whenever Max Schuster was interviewed, he said that his favorite way of spending an evening was to sit at home reading Spinoza, though since he also said that the only form of exercise he took was to go to the office every day and exercise his options, it was hard to know whether he was serious. I had not read history at Magdalen, but I had attended lectures by Alan Bullock, Hugh Trevor-Roper, and A. J. P. Taylor and was a protégé of Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, official biographer of King George VI, and had mentioned this in my job application. Schuster had apparently read it closely, even if nobody else had bothered, and what he saw there he had liked.
Kaplan’s impending departure eventually moved me toward the enviable position of being more or less independent of any real authority.I worked for Henry, to be sure, but since I was also going to be working for Max, I could pretty much set my own priorities. A man with two bosses effectively has none. In addition, I was to take over Kaplan’s role as “secretary of the editorial board.” The editorial board of S&S met on Thursday mornings in Max’s office and at that time consisted of Max, Henry, and Peter Schwed. On very rare occasions, one of the other editors might be called in to describe a book he or she wanted to buy, but Schuster’s shyness and his determination to have eye contact with as few people as possible meant that most editorial business was based on written reports and memos. It was a source of some bitterness in the company that the editors, however successful they might be, were excluded from the weekly meeting, but Schuster clung to the tradition stubbornly.
It was my job to attend the meeting and take the minutes, but there was no vow of silence involved. Schuster, I at once discovered, was as likely to ask me for my opinion as anyone else’s. Since the minutes of these meetings were central to his claim that he was truly running the business, the person who took the notes and drafted the minutes played an important role, from his point of view (though not from anybody else’s).
M Y FIRST serious meeting with Max (he put us almost immediately on a first-name basis) had been interesting but unsettling. Henry and I sat facing his desk, as his right hand tapped out a speedy rhythm with the business end of a ballpoint pen. On close inspection, Max’s toilette left something to be desired: There were bristly patches on his neck and cheeks that he had missed while shaving, small tufts of Kleenex clung to a couple of places where he had cut himself with his razor, he had neglected to put stays in the collar of his shirt, and several of his buttons were unbuttoned. He looked ever so slightly unkempt, despite the expensive, tailored, three-piece blue suit and the Sulka shirt and tie. One of his eyes strayed toward the side—he was a bit walleyed, as if searching, like a flounder, for danger on the periphery of his sight. His whole demeanor, for a man sitting in his own office in a company he half-owned, was remarkably nervous and edgy. In fact, I toyed with the notion that it was I who was making him nervous, but that didn’t seem to be the case. His desk was littered—quite literally—with clippings,memos, notes, three-by-five index cards in various colors, bulging files full of Thermofaxes (those pale pink, curly, shiny precursors to
Schuster was a snob of a gentle, old-fashioned kind. He liked the people who worked closely with him to be “connected” to somebody—Kaplan had been Eddie Bernays’s son-in-law; I was Sir Alexander Korda’s nephew. He also, not unnaturally, liked people who were interested in the kind of books that he liked: history, philosophy, new editions of the classics. Whenever Max Schuster was interviewed, he said that his favorite way of spending an evening was to sit at home reading Spinoza, though since he also said that the only form of exercise he took was to go to the office every day and exercise his options, it was hard to know whether he was serious. I had not read history at Magdalen, but I had attended lectures by Alan Bullock, Hugh Trevor-Roper, and A. J. P. Taylor and was a protégé of Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, official biographer of King George VI, and had mentioned this in my job application. Schuster had apparently read it closely, even if nobody else had bothered, and what he saw there he had liked.
Kaplan’s impending departure eventually moved me toward the enviable position of being more or less independent of any real authority.I worked for Henry, to be sure, but since I was also going to be working for Max, I could pretty much set my own priorities. A man with two bosses effectively has none. In addition, I was to take over Kaplan’s role as “secretary of the editorial board.” The editorial board of S&S met on Thursday mornings in Max’s office and at that time consisted of Max, Henry, and Peter Schwed. On very rare occasions, one of the other editors might be called in to describe a book he or she wanted to buy, but Schuster’s shyness and his determination to have eye contact with as few people as possible meant that most editorial business was based on written reports and memos. It was a source of some bitterness in the company that the editors, however successful they might be, were excluded from the weekly meeting, but Schuster clung to the tradition stubbornly.
It was my job to attend the meeting and take the minutes, but there was no vow of silence involved. Schuster, I at once discovered, was as likely to ask me for my opinion as anyone else’s. Since the minutes of these meetings were central to his claim that he was truly running the business, the person who took the notes and drafted the minutes played an important role, from his point of view (though not from anybody else’s).
M Y FIRST serious meeting with Max (he put us almost immediately on a first-name basis) had been interesting but unsettling. Henry and I sat facing his desk, as his right hand tapped out a speedy rhythm with the business end of a ballpoint pen. On close inspection, Max’s toilette left something to be desired: There were bristly patches on his neck and cheeks that he had missed while shaving, small tufts of Kleenex clung to a couple of places where he had cut himself with his razor, he had neglected to put stays in the collar of his shirt, and several of his buttons were unbuttoned. He looked ever so slightly unkempt, despite the expensive, tailored, three-piece blue suit and the Sulka shirt and tie. One of his eyes strayed toward the side—he was a bit walleyed, as if searching, like a flounder, for danger on the periphery of his sight. His whole demeanor, for a man sitting in his own office in a company he half-owned, was remarkably nervous and edgy. In fact, I toyed with the notion that it was I who was making him nervous, but that didn’t seem to be the case. His desk was littered—quite literally—with clippings,memos, notes, three-by-five index cards in various colors, bulging files full of Thermofaxes (those pale pink, curly, shiny precursors to
Similar Books
