William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life: Bookmarked by Steve Almond;

Author:Steve Almond;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 2)
Published: 2019-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

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As an example, let me revisit another dispute with a publisher, for whom I wrote a book about the moral atrocities of football. The central point of contention between us was the cover that would grace this volume. I wanted an image reflective of my radical position—ideally, a photo that captured the savagery at the heart of the enterprise. The publisher favored an image without violence, which his sales team feared would alienate female readers.

Soon, the dispute had gone beyond the cover. It was about us, our egos, the trench warfare of trust and respect. My job was to write the book. His job was to decide how the book would be presented to the world. He needed me to understand that he held the power. This was why he disregarded a series of emails and phone calls, a pattern I found humiliating.

When I finally exploded, I made sure to inflict maximum humiliation. I told him that I had decided to work with him because I thought he truly cared about art and social justice, that he wasn’t just a corporate suit who answered to the folks in marketing. I implied that he was the very thing he had spent his life attempting to prove he wasn’t: a sellout. I also assailed his power by announcing that I would have nothing further to do with the book if he insisted on a cover I didn’t approve of, and that I was happy to return my advance and shop the book elsewhere if he had a problem with that.

I will spare you the arias of rage that followed because I never actually heard them. The publisher did put the book out, but he never spoke another word to me, dispatching underlings to carry out that odious task.

Was I intransigent? Out of line? Even sadistic?

Yeah, I guess I was.

And yet, when I go back over the steps that led to this falling out, I don’t see how we could have avoided it. He was always going to impose his agenda as a publisher, which I was always going to experience as bullying. I was always going to lash out at him, which was always going to infuriate him. We were always going to do this particular dance because we were programmed, long ago, to do so.

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