how to lose money
The
great British publisher, born in Montreal, Canada in 1927 to a major brewing
industry and timber family, John Calder died today. Although growing up in
North America, he eventually moved to the United Kingdom, establishing Calder
Publishing in 1949, releasing, early on, major classic authors such as Anton
Chekov, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Émile Zola, Goethe and others. Given his classical literary background,
Calder soon turned to contemporary literature as well.
Early on he published William S.
Burroughs, and begin a life-long commitment to French writing, courting avant-garde
figures such as Samuel Beckett (he had wanted to publish Waiting for Godot after seeing a production, but those rights were
granted to the British publishing house of Faber and Faber); nonetheless, in
meeting with Beckett, he establised a close friendship, later publishing many
of the Nobel Prize winner’s major works of fiction.
Calder soon after grew to love a great
many experimental French writers, including Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite
Duras, Antonin Artaud, Eugène Ionesco, Nathalie Sarraute, Fernando Arrabal,
Robert Pinget, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and numerous others. Over the years,
Calder published 18 Nobel Prize winners.
He also quickly picked up on American
authors published by the similarly literary-oriented American publisher, Barney
Rosset of Grove Press, whose house had featured figures such as Henry Miller and Herbert Selby, and Calder soon dared the conservative
British censorship board to attack his publication of Miller’s work. The authorities
refused to do so, but he made much more money over the furor than he might otherwise
have achieved.
Despite his relative wealth, Calder was
often slow to pay royalties, and, reportedly wore suits until they began to
appear tattered, a patchwork of their original textures. He was, to say it
simply, a kind of curmudgeon, but for any of us who loved literature, a loving
one. It was also, so it is reported, a busy man when it came to the opposite sex.
I met with him in Paris in the 1990s, at
a time his press was in great decline. Friends had reported that he had now
become his one and only press representative, traveling across Europe and throughout
the US to sell his significant list—eventually reaching about 1800 titles—to book
buyers. I felt a great empathy, having had to do the same in some parts of the
US when I lost some of my press representatives for Sun and Moon Press, a
similarly literary-minded and cash-poor publishing house—although I never had
any of the early financial reserves he once had, nor any of the translating
skills (although many doubted his abilities), which allowed him personally to
translate some of his French writers into English.
In 1960, seeking further funding and publishing
help, he joined forces with the American, Switzerland-educated, Marion Boyers,
who provided a great deal of funding, and most importantly the editorial acumen
to acquire and edit some of the best books of those years. A brilliant co-publisher,
by the end of that decade Boyers grew tired of his “occasional visits” to the
office and his inability to balance his books.
I grew to know Marion at the annual
Frankfurt Book Fair events and immediately came to love her. She too was a kind
of wild publisher type, who often might poke me in the stomach, demanding that
I take her publishing house over with a financial offer impossible for my own
always cash-strapped Sun and Moon Press. But we adored one another, endlessly
laughing, even despite the fact that she attempted to sue one of my publishing
friends; and every year, at publishing parties and events, we spent a great
deal of time together. She had also published many young authors such as Don
Skiles and Kenneth Gangemi, whom I had featured early on in my Sun and Moon journal, as well as a writer whose books I later published, Dick Kalisch.
It must have been Marion, who angrily had broken ties with him years before, who provided me with John’s telephone
number. Calder and I met at a Paris bistro for dinner, and I attempted to probe
him concerning some of his Robert Pinget titles, of which he claimed he had a few
still-untranslated manuscripts (in a recent Facebook posting, I confused this
with another event about the rights for Genet, but I now realize what I was
seeking at the time). It was unsuccessful. But I truly enjoyed the evening with
him—feeling quite at home with his “tattered” look—as he told me wonderful
stories about his life. And we equally shared a great love of opera and
theater.
I never met him again, but I knew, even
then, what a legend he was, and felt a communion with his literary concerns. I’d
already tried to do something similarly with my Sun and Moon Press (only with
about 500 titles), and without the money to really support them—although
unfortunately, I suppose, I dove under the waters one again to produce over 250 further titles on my Green Integer press.
With Barney Rosset (d. 2012) of Grove
Press, James Laughlin (d. 1997) of New Directions, Marion Boyers (d. 1999), who
later founded her own imprint, and the even-more difficult British publisher Peter
Owen (d. 2016), I felt a great allegiance and sympathy, great egos included,
with their failures so apparent. I met them all, and held them as literary
heroes, whatever their personal foibles; my own difficulties were not so very
different. In a sense—although I never had the money most of these had—we all
gave up everything for a vision of literature that was never quite going to
sell enough copies to support us; we simply believed in great writing.
I was distressed today to hear of another
of these significant figures’ death. Only I and a very few others remain alive.
Fortunately, there are younger figures who seem to be continuing the tradition.
Let us hope so.
Los Angeles, August
13, 2018
