Author jumps ship, blames publisher (or what the Wall Street Journal got wrong).
Here is the thing about reporting: it’s subtle. When Jeff Trachtenberg writes in the Wall Street Journal that “John Irving is leaving his long-time publisher Random House and switching to CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster,” one is left believing this is a first of sorts. Or if not a first, something unusual. Indeed, the phrase long-term connotes a kind of fidelity, and continuity among personnel, and that the breach is significant because of the long history. But this is not the case.
In the course of a career dating back to 1968, John Irving has been published by Random House, Dutton, William Morrow and now Simon & Schuster (among others). Those imprints represent four of the big six! Arguably his most famous novel, The World According to Garp, was published by Dutton. It’s successor, The Cider House Rules (another benchmark in his career) was published by William Morrow. It would seem to me that his “long-time publisher” would in some way be connected to those works (but this is not the case). Irving has also worked with a number of distinguished editors, among them Henry Robbins (at Dutton), Harvey Ginsberg (at Morrow), and Kate Medina (at Random House). Come at me again with that line: long-time publisher? John Irving was published by Random House from 1968 to 1974, and then again from 1994 to 2009. By my count that’s twenty years with Random House and twenty years with other publishers.
John Irving is a great writer guilty of doing what many authors have done throughout their careers: sleeping around with publishers. They do it for any number of reasons: because they want change; for love (usually for an editor); and even for money. But it is not unusual, and it is a mistake for a journalist to couch it as such. So what we have here is not a story about a writer leaving his “long-time publisher” but rather a story about a writer jumping ship (and blaming his publisher). That I can live with (as an industry observer and participant). Because that’s what happened.
