David Lehman
ON THE PUBLISHING FRONT
When Hollywood needed a profession for its latest Frank–
enstein, the image merchants made her a New York City book edi-
tor.
Alex, the spurned lover played by Glenn Close in
Fatal Attrac–
tion,
is a family-wrecking, malevolent madwoman, than whom hell
hath no greater fury. She behaves like a real book editor for all of ten
seconds in the movie, but that's beside the point. She's simply sup–
posed to look the part, to project a plausible profile, to embody a
mystique about the publishing world . Hey, look her over: a liber–
ated and lusty single woman in a downtown New York City loft,
who works flexible hours, has a disregard for convention, a mascu–
line first name , and a bohemian sense of glamour.
If
she is also
capable of unleashing vast amounts of moral anarchy into the model
suburban family, as Alex does in
Fatal Attraction,
that, too, makes
perfect metaphoric sense. It taps into the deep American suspicion of
books, and of the literary life , and of the fatally subversive attrac–
tions of New York City.
Of one thing the filmmakers could be certain: audiences will
overlook the fact that Alex is never shown working on a manuscript,
conferring with an author, lunching with an agent, negotiating a
contract, approving jacket copy, estimating sales figures or calculat–
ing the size of an advance. But , then, few people outside the trade
have a clear picture of what an editor does - or know very much
about how publishing works.
In truth, the book business is a mystery even to highly educated
people, including the very authors and dungaree-clad university
professors who depend on a free press. By most standards, it's an
unusual industry , and its actual workings are almost as fascinating as
any myth of its seductive and subversive powers . It is , in the best of
times, a high-risk , low-margin enterprise. Begin with this oddity:
The most glamorous, most visible, and arguably most vital aspect of
any publishing program - the publication of adult trade hardcover
books - is the least consistently profitable; textbooks, professional
and scientific publications, children's books ('juveniles") and refer–
ence books (such as travel guides, tax guides, dictionaries, and
cookbooks) are the industry's reliable money-makers, but they're not
where the cultural glory is.
