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“Right, right” Lincoln nods eagerly He wants to volley back the names of a few of his treasured U of C teachers, but his le professor he studied under, even though at thirty-three, he’s probably fifteen years younger than his boss
“Well,” Duddleston says, shifting warily in his chair, getting to the unfortunate point of his visit, “I wanted to talk to you about your editing on Bill Leley Field”
“Yes?” Lincoln dreads what’s co
“You’re our most experienced editor, the one I rely on for the most delicate and sophisticated jobs”
Lincoln nods riped him that Duddleston kept the editor-in-chief title to hiside his true role, s Lincoln’s title, executive editor, makes him feel pinstriped and officious
“Well, Bill ca desperately unhappy,” Duddleston continues “He got your edit and your memo last week, and he said it depressed him so much he had to put it aside”
“I’h he is not entirely surprised
“He showed me your line edits on the manuscript, and ninety percent of them are fine, fine” Duddleston leans forward to emphasize his sincerity
“Good”
“But” He sits back again “Look, Bill Lemke has been a writer all his life He spentfor his byline myself! And this”—he holds out the manuscript—“some of this is just ay too harsh”
“I was trying to be candid,” Lincoln says weakly “Candid and helpful”
“But, but” Duddleston starts leafing clue, crisscrossed by a giant X In the in, Lincoln had written in pencil, “Lose it, Bill Trust ratuitous” Then he digs so horrified Beside one long paragraph, Lincoln had written, “I may vomit”
“That’s the fareat Kaufman and Hart couess I was getting weary by then and trying to be a bit playful”
“‘Playful?’ What’s playful about a rees off the top of the wad of manuscript “And your memo on how to fix the book—it’s just ay too harsh” He reads, “‘Every page needs a cliché-ectomy’ You talk to Bill Lemke as if he’s a child or an idiot”
Lincoln briefly considers pointing out that Le an inco by writing about Chicago’s blind love for its sports tealey Field: A People’s History But that way lies more trouble, so instead Lincoln suood writers—writers who really care about the craft and understand it—appreciate candor They know I just want to help the out the best book possible That’s why I edit in pencil on paper—so the writer can see exactly what I’ on thatI’ to help”
“Writers are sensitive beings,” Duddleston says, quietly, passionately “They’re fragile, their egos are fragile They need to be handled delicately”
Now, Lincoln thinks, he really lish at the U of C, investing his undergraduate life in the dusty canyons of the old Harper Library—by his account, spending entire weekends in a favorite chair reading nineteenth-century English literature But after graduation, to , Duddleston took a job as a trader and spent the next twenty years in the wheat pit at the Board of Trade, screa buy and sell orders at other sweaty, panicky ood at it and parlayed his skill into a small fortune, and to his credit, he had the sense to walk away before an artery burst or he made a bad play and lost it all In his heart, Duddleston always felt like an English major, so he took a chunk of his wealth and founded Pistakee Press, placing hih small presses are notoriousthrough a revolution, Duddleston retained enough of his financial acuity to turn the company into a nice little business But because of that CV, he’s never had to deal riters as workers, as producers of a coht for success in the le their sentences (and their thinking), he’s never had to convince them that their first, flatulent drafts are only first drafts and that it will take hours of(and thenby the editor) before the tohtfully take its place as that underappreciated and overabundant product, a book
No, Byron Duddleston still i fully formed from Thomas Hardy’s head, and if so moment, the whole classic story would have crumbled and bloay like sand