DITCHWALK

A Road Less Traveled

Topics / Books / Docs

About / Archive / Contact

Copyright © 2002-2020 Mark Barrett 

Home > Archives for Jonathan Burnham

Publishing is for Professionals

July 14, 2015 By Mark Leave a Comment

So today is the day that Harper Lee’s new ‘novel’ goes on sale. Far be it from me to question the motives of the titans of cultural responsibility at HarperCollins, but if the early returns are any indication this is not a glorious day in the history of literature:

“Watchman”s portrayal of the older Finch as a man who has attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting and opposes racial desegregation has already grabbed headlines because of the stark contrast to the noble lawyer in “Mockingbird” who defends a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman.

The Wall Street Journal’s Sam Sacks described “Watchman” as “a distressing book, one that delivers a startling rebuttal to the shining idealism of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ This story is of the toppling of idols; its major theme is disillusion.”

Several reviewers found fault with the new book on artistic grounds.

David L. Ulin of the Los Angeles Times called it “an apprentice effort (that) falls apart in the second half” and Julia Teller at the Chicago Tribune said it was “almost unbearably clunky” in parts.

It’s quite clear that until very recently Harper Lee never intended this ‘novel’ to be published, and that until the death of her sister, who was her primary caretaker, that wish was respected. Now, amazingly, at exactly the moment when Lee is alone and also quite aged and infirm, it turns out that the kindly cultural stewards at HarperCollins have been able to convince Lee otherwise. It’s a miracle — and in particular a miracle that has absolutely nothing to do with money.

But there’s a problem, of course, and the problem is how to see this new ‘novel’ in the context of Lee’s less-infamous novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Or rather it’s a problem for some, but not for anyone who has ever written, because what’s being sold as a new novel from Harper Lee is almost certainly an early exploratory draft that held great meaning for Lee not because of what it was, but because of what it led to.

When you’re a writer, and particularly when you work in long form, you learn that your initial work is not always on the mark. Sometimes you get help from others, sometimes you see a better way yourself, but in any case you try something, it doesn’t work, so you try something else. There is nothing new in this. It is the way authors have always written, even as many authors themselves prefer to cling to the self-aggrandizing (and coincidentally salable) lie that great works emerge wholly formed, without typos.

In the graphic-novel genre Lee’s new ‘novel’ would simply be considered an alternate history and discussed in that context, but Mockingbird is sainted literature. Sainted literature that may now be indelibly stained by the noble and benevolent actions of a giant corporation acting only in the best interest of its author and readers. Because many of the critics who bless literature with sainthood are themselves culturally unable to comprehend Lee’s new ‘novel’ as a work product, as opposed to a statement of some kind, the myth will be perpetuated that this new work is in fact a separate work, which it almost certainly is not.

Whatever becomes of Lee and her legacy, the lesson for other writers is clear. If you’ve got an early exploratory draft, and you don’t want someone coming along later and misrepresenting that draft as a separate work, then you need to burn or delete that draft. At which point the academics will accuse you of having stolen or appropriated the final product, because they will find no evidence of how you got there on your own.

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: HarperCollins, Jonathan Burnham, professionals

Publishing is for Professionals

March 11, 2015 By Mark 1 Comment

One problem with allowing people to publish their work without first taking the benevolent guiding hand of the publishing industry is that writers are left open to all sorts of potential exploitation. Just as it’s easy to take advantage of an elderly person who’s had a stroke and get them to sign all sorts of papers and statements and turn their lives over to virtual strangers, it’s easy to dupe young writers into making choices and deals that are not in their best interest.

That’s why I’m thrilled — thrilled — to see HarperCollins’ Jonathan Burnham taking such good care of Harper Lee and her recently discovered long-lost novel, Go Set A Watchman, which she apparently wrote prior to writing her rightly celebrated masterpiece, To Kill A Mockingbird. I get sick thinking how Lee might have been ill-served by a lesser white knight incapable of anticipating a jaded public’s dubious reaction and providing a preemptive and detailed forensic defense of such an important discovery:

“Everyone had believed it to been [sic] lost, including Harper Lee herself,” Burnham said. “You can see that it is written on a manual typewriter from the period. It has on the front of it the address where Harper Lee was living at the time in New York. But if you read the book, more importantly, only Harper Lee could have written this novel.”

Thank goodness! Because in the dark corners of the publishing world you can only imagine how easy it would have been for someone with fewer scruples to take an early draft of Mockingbird and pay a ghost writer to bash out a few new chapters on and old typewriter, using the resulting bastardized mishmash not only to exploit Harper Lee but rip off an adoring and trusting public. Fortunately, that has obviously not happened.  [ Read more ]

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: HarperCollins, Jonathan Burnham, professionals, Publishing

Publishing is for Professionals

October 1, 2009 By Mark 3 Comments

Publishing is a time-honored profession lovingly cared for and protected by people who believe in culture, books, and ideas.

Or…not. From Andrew Sullivan:

We are asked to believe that [Palin] wrote a 400-page autobiography in two months. Although no one ever believed Harper Collins’ Jonathan Burnham was actually interested in the content of books, this new contract and its absurd delivery date closes the case.
…
(Full disclosure: Burnham published my last book, The Conservative Soul. I know whereof I speak.)

Ouch.

Update: more on Burnham, and why amateurs are not qualified to decide who gets published.

(Hint: professionals are rigorously trained to put money ahead of everything else, including their own self-respect.)

— Mark Barrett

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: HarperCollins, Jonathan Burnham, professionals, Publishing