The Quirky Giant of the Publishing Biz

Robert A. Gottlieb, editor at large at Alfred A. Knopf publishing company, has the golden touch.

When Bill Clinton handpicked Gottlieb, 70, recently to edit his memoirs, the former president selected someone who possesses both a world-class literary reputation and a keen knack for raking in big bucks.

A master of personal quirkiness, Gottlieb “dresses like the biggest shlumpf in the world,” said someone who knows him. Others say he edits while sitting cross-legged on the floor. He collects plastic handbags and kitschy Americana--snow globes, lava lamps, macrame owls and Elvis memorabilia. At the height of his nearly 50-year career (with a troubled five-year hiatus as editor of the New Yorker magazine) Gottlieb has been perhaps the most influential book editor in the world.

“The possibility of working with Robert Gottlieb was a big inducement to President Clinton to work with Knopf,” explained Robert Barnett of Williams & Connolly, a lawyer who brokered the deal between Clinton and Knopf.

Though Clinton is intrigued by Gottlieb’s reputation, the president may also learn a thing or two about how to craft a book that will sell. Gottlieb has a way of drawing things out of his writers, said someone who has worked with him, “of making them think. And reveal.”

He has run two of the country’s most prestigious publishing companies--Simon & Schuster and Alfred A. Knopf. And he has played co-conspirator and kingmaker to such exalted writers as Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Barbara Tuchman, V.S. Naipaul, Chaim Potok and others. He suggested that Joseph Heller change the name of his novel from “Catch-18” to “Catch-22.” John Le Carre once said that Gottlieb is the best in the business. He also knows what the public wants. Vampire novels, for instance.

Anne Rice, a Knopf author, said, “He was a giant presence that loomed over the halls of Knopf. Before I met Bob, I was in awe of him. I had heard all of the stories, of how he had read ‘War and Peace’ in one weekend.” Said Rice, “He was very charming. ... I don’t think ‘Interview With the Vampire’ would have gotten published without Bob’s interest.” For years, Gottlieb took a personal interest in the phenomenally successful early novels of Michael Crichton, shepherding books such as “The Andromeda Strain” and “Congo” onto bestseller lists.

And he has played mentor to famous nonprofessional writers. He worked with actors Liv Ullmann, Lauren Bacall and Sidney Poitier, radio host Diane Rehm and Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham to get their autobiographies into print. Graham’s “Personal History” won a Pulitzer Prize.

“I could not have written the book without him,” she told the Boston Globe. When in Washington, Gottlieb stayed in her house; he attended her funeral last month.

Gottlieb, who declined to be interviewed for this story, once told the Boston Globe: “There is no way to judge a good editor. There are some authors who need to believe that they are dealing with the best. But nobody knows exactly what an editor does. What you do for one writer--obsessive line editing, say--may not be appropriate for another. For another writer, an idea or suggestion may be what is needed.”

He also has the reputation for knowing just what he wants. One writer who has worked with Gottlieb said, “My first agent told me ‘Bob G. is the nicest guy in the world. Except for when he isn’t.’ I found that the perfect description. He has an odd manner of flaring up over very little things. It’s totally unpredictable and over very quickly, but it hurts when you are going through it. Then he is back to being this lovely, spacey guy with all the nutty stuff in his office.”

Under Gottlieb, said a source at Random House, Knopf was run “very much as a fiefdom. He would do the bulk of the buying of the books.”

Editors were told which books they would edit. If you kept your head down and worked hard,” the source said, “Bob would take care of you.”

But, the source said, with writers, Gottlieb was “an unbelievably responsive editor. He’s known for immediate turnaround. He would call with comments the next day.”

Gottlieb came by his love for literature honestly. An only child, he was raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. His father was a lawyer; his mother taught school. They both loved books.

After graduating from Columbia University in 1952, Gottlieb attended graduate school at Cambridge University, then came home and sold greeting cards at Macy’s.

“I never had a plan--career or otherwise--except to get through the day,” he told the Boston Globe in 1986. Through an employment agency, he got a low-level job at Simon & Schuster in 1955. He worked his way up to editor in chief.

He was at Simon & Schuster for 13 years. In 1968, Gottlieb took over the reins at Knopf.

“He made changes slowly and deliberately,” said Knopf senior editor Ashbel Green. “We were publishing 70 books a year in 1967, and by the mid-70s we were doing 120 or 130 a year.”

Every list represents the taste of the man who’s running the place, Green said. “Bob was far more into popular culture than the Knopfs were.”

In 1987, Gottlieb was named editor of the New Yorker, replacing the irreplaceable William Shawn. Gottlieb was replaced by Tina Brown in 1992. He eventually returned to Knopf as an editor at large. His five-year tenure at the magazine was rocky.

Before he had even moved into the famously shabby offices, Gottlieb was petitioned by more than 150 writers and artists--including J.D. Salinger and John McPhee--to back out of the job.

“The protest wasn’t based on him,” said someone who worked with Gottlieb at the magazine, “but on Si Newhouse’s promise that he would consult the editorial staff before choosing an editor.”

The problem, the source said, was that Gottlieb “didn’t seem to have any interest in journalism. Almost literally none.”

He is totally devoted to his work. He listed it first several years ago when he told an interviewer there are four things in his life: “Work, the ballet, reading and my family.” (Gottlieb is married to actress Maria Tucci. They have two kids; he has a son by a previous marriage.)

Even today, he has a townhouse just down the street from the Knopf offices--he bought it many years ago. He does much of his editing there. “I don’t do anything else,” he told the interviewer. “I don’t have lunches, dinners, go to plays or movies. I don’t meditate, escalate, deviate or have affairs.”

He failed to mention his affection for purses: He has an extensive collection of plastic handbags; so many, in fact, that in 1988 he published “A Certain Style: The Art of the Plastic Handbag, 1949-59.”

Michael Korda, editor in chief at Simon & Schuster, wrote in his 1999 memoir, “Another Life,” “Bob had a kind of split personality as an editor: He pursued high culture and low culture with equal intensity and seemed to enjoy both. More extraordinary, he was good at both.”