moments later he came back from the telephone looking shaken and gray. “Nelson Algren just died,” he said. Algren had prepared his party and then suffered a fatal heart attack. The first guests to arrive found the host dead on the living room rug. His review of
Midnight’s Children
was the last thing he ever wrote.
Nelson Algren. I thought he was dead
. Algren’s death darkened Vonnegut’s mood. His own thoughts were sober, too. The sudden, unforeseeable plunge toward the rug awaited us all.
The critical success of
Midnight’s Children
in the United States took Knopf by surprise. He had come to New York at his own expense just to be there when his book was published, and no interviews had been arranged for him, and none were, not even after the excellent notices appeared. The print run was small, there was a small reprint, a small paperback sale, and that was that. However, he was fortunate enough to shake hands, at the entrance to the offices at 201 East 50th Street, with the legendary Alfred A. Knopf himself, an elderly, courteous gentleman in an expensive coat and a dark beret. And he also met his gangling, intense publisher, Robert Gottlieb, who was something of a legend himself. He was taken to Bob Gottlieb’s office, which was decorated with fiftieth-birthday bunting and cards, and after they had spoken for a while, Gottlieb said, “Now that I know I like you, I can tell you that I thought I wasn’t going to.” This was shocking. “Why?” he said, fumbling for words. “Didn’t you like my book? I mean, you published my book.…” Bob shook his head. “It wasn’t because of your book,” he said. “But I recently read a very great book by a very great writer and after it I thought I wouldn’t be able to like anyone with a Muslim background.” This was, if anything, an even more astonishing statement. “What was this very great book?” he asked Gottlieb, “and who is this very great writer?” “The book,” said Bob Gottlieb, “is called
Among the Believers
, and the author is V. S. Naipaul.” “That,” he said to the editor-in-chief of Knopf, “is a book I definitely want to read.”
Bob Gottlieb didn’t appear to know how his words were being received, and, in fairness, he went on to be extremely hospitable toward the author he hadn’t thought he would like, inviting him to eat at his town house in Turtle Bay, the tony Manhattan neighborhood whose other residents included Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen Sondheim and Katharine Hepburn. (The septuagenarian movie star had recently showed up on Gottlieb’s doorstep after a snowstorm, carrying a shovel,and offered to clear the snow off the publisher’s roof.) Gottlieb was also on the board of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet and invited his new young Indian novelist—who had once seen Balanchine’s greatest love, Suzanne Farrell, dance in London with the Maurice Béjart ballet company after her quarrel with the great Russian choreographer—to watch a performance. “There is only one condition,” Bob said. “You have to forget about Béjart and agree that Balanchine is God.”
He offered literary hospitality, too. When Gottlieb left Knopf in 1987 to step into William Shawn’s shoes as editor of
The New Yorker
, the doors of that august journal finally opened to allow the author of
Midnight’s Children
to enter. Under Mr. Shawn’s regime those doors had remained resolutely closed, and Salman was not one of those who mourned the end of the great editor’s fifty-three-year reign. Bob Gottlieb published both his fiction and nonfiction, and was a brilliant, detailed and passionate editor of the long essay “Out of Kansas” (1992), a response to
The Wizard of Oz
, which, as Gottlieb rightly encouraged him to stress, was one of the sweetest of odes to friendship in the movies.
During the
fatwa
years he saw Gottlieb only once. Liz Calder and Carmen Callil gave a joint birthday party at the Groucho Club in Soho, and he was able to
Midnight’s Children
was the last thing he ever wrote.
Nelson Algren. I thought he was dead
. Algren’s death darkened Vonnegut’s mood. His own thoughts were sober, too. The sudden, unforeseeable plunge toward the rug awaited us all.
The critical success of
Midnight’s Children
in the United States took Knopf by surprise. He had come to New York at his own expense just to be there when his book was published, and no interviews had been arranged for him, and none were, not even after the excellent notices appeared. The print run was small, there was a small reprint, a small paperback sale, and that was that. However, he was fortunate enough to shake hands, at the entrance to the offices at 201 East 50th Street, with the legendary Alfred A. Knopf himself, an elderly, courteous gentleman in an expensive coat and a dark beret. And he also met his gangling, intense publisher, Robert Gottlieb, who was something of a legend himself. He was taken to Bob Gottlieb’s office, which was decorated with fiftieth-birthday bunting and cards, and after they had spoken for a while, Gottlieb said, “Now that I know I like you, I can tell you that I thought I wasn’t going to.” This was shocking. “Why?” he said, fumbling for words. “Didn’t you like my book? I mean, you published my book.…” Bob shook his head. “It wasn’t because of your book,” he said. “But I recently read a very great book by a very great writer and after it I thought I wouldn’t be able to like anyone with a Muslim background.” This was, if anything, an even more astonishing statement. “What was this very great book?” he asked Gottlieb, “and who is this very great writer?” “The book,” said Bob Gottlieb, “is called
Among the Believers
, and the author is V. S. Naipaul.” “That,” he said to the editor-in-chief of Knopf, “is a book I definitely want to read.”
Bob Gottlieb didn’t appear to know how his words were being received, and, in fairness, he went on to be extremely hospitable toward the author he hadn’t thought he would like, inviting him to eat at his town house in Turtle Bay, the tony Manhattan neighborhood whose other residents included Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen Sondheim and Katharine Hepburn. (The septuagenarian movie star had recently showed up on Gottlieb’s doorstep after a snowstorm, carrying a shovel,and offered to clear the snow off the publisher’s roof.) Gottlieb was also on the board of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet and invited his new young Indian novelist—who had once seen Balanchine’s greatest love, Suzanne Farrell, dance in London with the Maurice Béjart ballet company after her quarrel with the great Russian choreographer—to watch a performance. “There is only one condition,” Bob said. “You have to forget about Béjart and agree that Balanchine is God.”
He offered literary hospitality, too. When Gottlieb left Knopf in 1987 to step into William Shawn’s shoes as editor of
The New Yorker
, the doors of that august journal finally opened to allow the author of
Midnight’s Children
to enter. Under Mr. Shawn’s regime those doors had remained resolutely closed, and Salman was not one of those who mourned the end of the great editor’s fifty-three-year reign. Bob Gottlieb published both his fiction and nonfiction, and was a brilliant, detailed and passionate editor of the long essay “Out of Kansas” (1992), a response to
The Wizard of Oz
, which, as Gottlieb rightly encouraged him to stress, was one of the sweetest of odes to friendship in the movies.
During the
fatwa
years he saw Gottlieb only once. Liz Calder and Carmen Callil gave a joint birthday party at the Groucho Club in Soho, and he was able to
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