222
PARTISAN REVIEW
before that-I thought to myself that what I really wanted was to pub–
lish the kind of writers that appeared in
Partisan Review.
I understood
that on my friend Susan Sontag's first voyage
to
New York from Cali–
fornia, she went into the offices of PR without them knowing who she
was and saw a man behind the desk with a pile of books next
to
him
whose name was William Phillips. She said, "Mr. Phillips, I'd very much
like to write for
Partisan Review."
He said, "What kind of writing do
you want to do?" She said, "Well, I want to write essays, anything. I
want
to
write for
Partisan Review.
I am a big admirer." So he said, "See
that pile of books over there? Take a couple and review them." That
was the beginning of her relationship with the magazine and with prob–
ably her first publisher. I very much wanted
to
have those kinds of
authors under our imprint. I got around
to
meeting Philip Rahv and
William, and if the expense accounts were all right we would go to
Charles restaurant and sit at one of those booths and ta lk about life, etc.
I would say that we ought to do something about the circulation of the
magazine. Philip would say, "What the hell do we have to worry about
that for? Half the people who read the magazine now don't know what
the hell we're saying. So why do we need more readers?" I pointed out
that maybe with more readers we wouldn't have
to
raise so much
money. And William would take the cool ground that maybe that was a
point we should think about.
So life went on, and we had many other discussions of the same kind.
I finally had the good fortune to be able to publish a great number of
Partisan Review's
authors. In more recent times, when William was not
at his best, he was still at his best. I would go over to the apartment
house at One Lincoln Plaza for supper and there would be a few people
there. We'd share gossip.
It
was the kind of gossip that he really liked
and that he was thirsty for. Fortunately, I was able to supply it because
I have a nasty mind . So I was able to give him a few nutrients that way.
I know that he felt very strongly that after his passing he wanted the
magazine to go on. He wanted Edith to be there. He wanted the direc–
tion of the magazine to go on the same. As I stand here today with you
and my colleagues and hear you talking about William, his past, his pre–
sent, I also want to think about the future, because I think that the peo–
ple here who have been talking about him should all gather together to
make sure that the magazine goes on, for it is a very important part of
the American cultural life.
It
was in the beginning, it was in the middle,
and it should be in the end.
