by Edward Champion

The Knopf Times Book Review

[UPDATE: On the evening of January 21, 2009, I asked Tanenhaus in person about the concerns satirized below, and I was able to get a few answers. I point readers of this post to the direction of my later post, “In Which I Talk with Tanenhaus,” where some questions are answered and Tanenhaus’s perspective is reported.]

It started with Sam Tanenhaus’s ridiculously uncritical review (and fawning video interview) with John Updike. It continued with Tanenhaus’s lips nearly licking Toni Morrison to a needlessly sensual premature death. But this afternoon, Sam Tanenhaus proved that The New York Times Book Review isn’t an independent organ, but rather a throbbing and dependent organ shoving itself restlessly into Knopf’s moist vagina. The New York Times Book Review selected its top ten books of 2008. Seven of the books were from Knopf. Of the remaining three selections, two were from other Random House imprints under Knopf’s watch. The only other publisher served was Farrar, Straus & Giruoux.

I think it goes without saying that someone is getting a cock sucked here.

My beef here is not with Random House, who has been consistently receptive and helpful to journalists of all stripes, but with Sam Tanenhaus’s embarrassingly tendentious selection process. These are malodorous results that reek as shamefully as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s “decision-making process” during the Golden Globe Awards. It bears the skunkish whiff of junkets and favoritism. And it certainly doesn’t behoove any “paper of record” that expects us to take it seriously.

If this is a desperate ploy on Tanenhaus’s part to coax Random House to buy more advertising space in the New York Times Book Review, well, the joke here’s on Tanenhaus. Because why should Random House buy an advertisement in the NYTBR when they’re getting all this free publicity?

Look, I love Updike as much as the next guy. But let’s face the facts. By and large, the critics seemed to agree that The Widows of Eastwick didn’t quite cut the mustard. For Tanenhaus to write, in all seriousness, “At 76, he still wrings more from a sentence than almost anyone else. His sorcery is startlingly fresh, page upon page,” suggests very strongly that Tanenhaus assigned the wrong guy to review the book. It is one thing to marvel at Updike’s prose. But it’s quite another to fawn over it like an uncritical and sycophantic lapdog. For all the love and fanboyish accolades that have been granted to Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland and Roberto Bolano’s 2666, I’ve never seen any of these plaudits spill over into Tanenhaus’s unmitigated hero worship.

How can any man live with himself knowing that he is such an unrepentant whore? Thank goodness Dwight Garner got out of this sausage factory when he did for the daily book reviewing gig. Compare Garner’s more adept review of Alison Bechdel’s The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For in today’s edition. It’s just as effusive as Tanenhaus’s Updike review, but at least Garner still has some respect: both for himself and the readership.

by Edward Champion

Time Out New York for Sale

The London Times is reporting that Time Out New York is now on the block. The backers of the magazine, which is fond of not paying its freelancers on a timely basis, are hoping that they can sell TONY for $40 million and recoup the 13-year investment. What’s even more interesting is that TONY is allegedly more profitable than the original Time Out magazine based in London. Time Out founder Tony Elliott, who owns one-third of the New York version and cannot afford to buy out his partners, is hoping that he can rustle up some cash. “If somebody offers $10 million, it won’t happen,” says Elliott in the Times article. But given that the Time Out Group Ltd. has shown a loss of £465,000 before taxes during the eleven months leading up to December 2006, perhaps Elliott might wish to be transparent about the current state of his company if he wishes to get more than $10 million. He might also want to start disseminating the measly checks that he still owes to his remaining freelancers to demonstrate his commitment to solvency.

by Edward Champion

Major Reorgnization from Random House; Applebaum and Rubin Out

In an email circulated to Random House colleagues, Random House announced a massive reorganization and the loss of veteran staffers, Irwyn Applebaum and Steve Rubin. Here is the email that came from CEO Markus Dohle:

Dear colleagues and agents,

I would like to share with you the attached announcements I made today regarding a reorganization within Random House and the departure of two colleagues, Irwyn Applebaum and Steve Rubin, with whom you’ve worked over the years.

I want to emphasize that within this new structure our publishing groups retain their autonomy and our publishing programs and efforts will continue unabated. We are committed to the values of a vibrant marketplace and to supporting the passions of our individual editors and publishers to pursue the projects they desire. For that reason we will continue the Random House policy of permitting imprints to bid against each other in auctions up to the moment that there are no out-of-house participants.

My intention is that Random House should always lead the market, even in difficult times, and we can do that only by forging stronger relationships with our authors, you, their agents, our retail customers and readers everywhere. These changes will make each individual imprint stronger and make us better able to accomplish that goal collectively.

Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts.

Regards,

Markus

As part of the reorganization, Knopf will be absorbing both Doubleday and Nan A. Atlese, with this new amalgam headed by Knopf’s Sonny Mehta, while Crown, under the supervision of President and Publisher Jenny Frost, is taking Broadway, Doubleday Business, Doubleday Religion and Waterbrook Mountain. These details were announced in the attached PDFs.

Dohle insists in the PDF, “I want to stress the fact that all the imprints of Random House will retain their distinct editorial identities. These imprints and all of you who support them are the creative core of our business and essential to our success.” But with the distinct identities of Applebaum and Rubin now out of the picture, it remains to be seen whether or not these new clusters will remain as distinct as their previous incarnations.

The Observer‘s Leon Nefakh also reports, “The time bomb that was Random House for the past five months has finally exploded.”