Random Notes

Sure Things: When it comes to publishing books about controversial subjects, let no one say that Holt or Simon & Schuster fails to cover its bases. Consider, just two pages apart in Holt’s catalogue for the upcoming season, this curious pair of books. Scheduled for release in November is a typical title for this left-listing house, Feeding Frenzy: The Inside Story of Wedtech, by William Sternberg and Matthew C. Harrison Jr. According to the catalogue copy, Sternberg and Harrison have written an “exposé” of “ ‘sleaze factor’ influence-peddling from borough president to the offices of the Attorney General.” That’s page twenty. On page 18: Witness to History: Power and Politics in the Reagan White House (due out in February), the memoirs of that unnamed Attorney General, Edwin Meese III. Does Editor-in-Chief John Macrae III see the anomaly of lionizing Mr. Meese as a “Witness to History” in one book and skewering him as an influence-peddler in the next? “I don’t see any inconsistency,” says Mr. Macrae. “Our job is to make things public. That’s really what publishing is about.” Will Meese mind? “No, he’s not that type.”

If Meese isn’t the type to mind getting screwed by his own publisher, what, one wonders, about that old friend of his, Ronald Reagan? Simon & Schuster, publisher of Reagan’s forthcoming memoirs, has recently signed up Kitty Kelley to write the biography of Mrs. Reagan. Miss Kelley’s reputation is well known. In previous “unauthorized” biographies—of Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis—Miss Kelley has rarely if ever chosen as a subject someone she admires. Critics over the years have said about her more or less the same thing: “puts in all the dirt and rumors” previous biographers of Mrs. Onassis left out, “eager to chronicle the minutiae of Sinatra’s vices,” etc. Mr. Reagan is said to be almost as protective of his wife’s reputation as she is of his. Will it bother him to share publishers with Kitty Kelley? Reagan’s editor, Michael Korda, did not return phone calls. S&S Editorial Director Alice Mayhew was huffily dismissive. “We publish all kinds of books. We do not censor our authors. That’s all I have to say.”

About the Author

David Klinghoffer

David Klinghoffer, a former literary editor at NR, is a senior fellow at Discovery Institute and co-author of The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath, and other books.

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Sure Things: When it comes to publishing books about controversial subjects, let no one say that Holt or Simon & Schuster fails to cover its bases. Consider, just two pages apart in Holt’s catalogue for the upcoming season, this curious pair of books. Scheduled for release in November is a typical title for this left-listing house, Feeding Frenzy: The Inside Story of Wedtech, by William Sternberg and Matthew C. Harrison Jr. According to the catalogue copy, Sternberg and Harrison have written an “exposé” of “ ‘sleaze factor’ influence-peddling from borough president to the offices of the Attorney General.” That’s page twenty. On page 18: Witness to History: Power and Politics in the Reagan White House (due out in February), the memoirs of that unnamed Attorney General, Edwin Meese III. Does Editor-in-Chief John Macrae III see the anomaly of lionizing Mr. Meese as a “Witness to History” in one book and skewering him as an influence-peddler in the next? “I don’t see any inconsistency,” says Mr. Macrae. “Our job is to make things public. That’s really what publishing is about.” Will Meese mind? “No, he’s not that type.”

If Meese isn’t the type to mind getting screwed by his own publisher, what, one wonders, about that old friend of his, Ronald Reagan? Simon & Schuster, publisher of Reagan’s forthcoming memoirs, has recently signed up Kitty Kelley to write the biography of Mrs. Reagan. Miss Kelley’s reputation is well known. In previous “unauthorized” biographies—of Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis—Miss Kelley has rarely if ever chosen as a subject someone she admires. Critics over the years have said about her more or less the same thing: “puts in all the dirt and rumors” previous biographers of Mrs. Onassis left out, “eager to chronicle the minutiae of Sinatra’s vices,” etc. Mr. Reagan is said to be almost as protective of his wife’s reputation as she is of his. Will it bother him to share publishers with Kitty Kelley? Reagan’s editor, Michael Korda, did not return phone calls. S&S Editorial Director Alice Mayhew was huffily dismissive. “We publish all kinds of books. We do not censor our authors. That’s all I have to say.”

About the Author

David Klinghoffer

David Klinghoffer, a former literary editor at NR, is a senior fellow at Discovery Institute and co-author of The Gift of Rest: Rediscovering the Beauty of the Sabbath, and other books.