She told me that when the deal between Kastle and Rockland Oil fell through (‘We book people at Kinetic had nothing to do with it—just the money men’) the basic reason was not ventilated because it might be bad publicity for publishing: ‘A group of our best writers, none curiously in my stable, announced that they would not write for Kastle, would tear up their contracts and go to court to defend their right to do so. This altered the terms of the sale so critically that Kastle, justifiably in my mind, backed out.’
‘The Times article didn’t say anything about writers revolting—it said something about “business concessions,” ’ I said, and she added brusquely: ‘Smoke screen to hide the ugly problems.’
An intense drive had then been orchestrated to keep the ownership in the United States, but one potential suitor after another inspected the books and backed off. A surprisingly able group from Kansas City included three members whose literary wives thought it would be marvelous to own a publishing house so that they could entertain famous writers, especially Lukas Yoder, and the sale came within hours of completion. But at the last moment the husbands looked at the real profit-and-loss predictions and the oldest member growled: ‘What are we doing fooling around with this penny-ante business?’ The men came to their senses and withdrew the offer.
For Rockland Oil that was the final straw. That very afternoon the big brass called the Kastle people in Hamburg and asked if they’d raise their bid by forty-six million if Kinetic promised that not more than six of their big-name writers would depart. But Kastle did want one assurance: ‘Will Yoder and his editor, Ms. Marmelle, stay with us?’ She told me that ten minutes before, when rumors of the first Kastle bid flashed through the editorial rooms, ‘I had pretty much decided to walk out, taking my four Dresden writers with me, if they’d come. But when I realized that this might put the entire sale in jeopardy, and at a time when Kinetic desperately needed a home, I made a snap decision: I’ll stay, and the deal was made possible. It hasn’t been consummated yet.’
In the hectic weeks that followed I interviewed a score of people and found myself the nation’s leading authority on the impending demise of Kinetic Press. I do believe I understood the dodges and desperation moves better even than the gray-suited lawyers who control so much of our national life. In what I now report I draw upon those interviews.
Yvonne had been correct in her assessment of why the first Kastle deal had fallen through: a group of writers had delivered an ultimatum, ‘No German owners,’ so the economic base for the sale had collapsed. She was also right in her guess that more than a dozen potential American buyers had nosed up to the trough but refused to feed. But she did not know that quite a few of these potential buyers had been put off by the arrogance of the Rockland Oil people, who considered Kinetic no different from an outmoded filling station in Albuquerque that had to be liquidated.
When word began to circulate publicly that German ownership of Kinetic might soon be formalized, employees of the firm started looking to their president, John MacBain, for guidance. But as Yvonne pointed out: ‘We soon discovered that he knew no more than we. Neither Rockland nor Kastle bothered to inform him of how negotiations were going. He was treated with contempt.’
Through extensive interviews at the various law offices I learned that at the very time MacBain and his senior staff were trying to discover what was about to happen to their company—and mine, I was beginning to think—the deal was consummated along sensible lines, with both Rockland and Kastle getting much of what they had anticipated. But for three days, while papers were being signed, no one bothered to tell the people at Kinetic what was transpiring.
The time had now come when Yvonne had to inform MacBain of the commission she had given me surreptitiously and he said: ‘Good. There ought to be an impartial record of this catastrophe in American publishing. Streibert will do an honest job.’ To my surprise he was so eager to have a factual account rendered that he invited me to a session in his office, and after a few pleasantries in which he praised my books of criticism he said: ‘We hope to enjoy a long relationship with you, Professor. You seem to have a judicious eye.’
‘And ear, I hope, because as Ms. Marmelle told you, I’ve been investigating Kinetic rather carefully.’
‘And what have you discovered?’
‘There’s an ugly rumor that Rockland Oil has not kept you informed of negotiations that everyone else knows are under way. Could that be true?’
‘Absolutely.’ He said this with such vigor and distaste that I asked bluntly: ‘Would it be possible for Rockland to close the deal without telling you?’ and he replied bitterly: ‘In the past they’ve told me nothing. Why would they start now?’
The humiliation to which he was being subjected angered him so much that he rang for his secretary: ‘Please ask the senior editors to join us. I want them to give Professor Streibert their full cooperation in the task he’s undertaking,’ and when the older men and women who had helped keep Kinetic vital through the years joined us, I could see in their faces the secret fears that attacked them in these days when they had no security in a company they had helped build.
At that moment the phone rang, and all of us in the room expected that it might be the president of Rockland informing us of whatever deal had been made. Instead it was a flunky in his office who said in a voice loud enough for some of us to hear: ‘MacBain, this is Ralph Considine in President Cornwall’s office. He wanted me to advise you that Kinetic has this day been sold to Kastle in a deal that looks profitable to both sides. Kastle has agreed to keep you on as head of Kinetic for two more years, after which you’ll be eligible for a comfortable pension. There will be no mass firings, but deadwood will be removed as painlessly as possible.’ There was more, but I forget the details.
When Mr. MacBain put down the telephone, I saw his ashen face. He told us the deal had been concluded three days earlier but no one had told him. He then looked at each of his staff and said: ‘I suppose that by the terms of the sale, you seniors will be kept on. Those lower in the hierarchy may not be.’ In the ensuing silence his fingers drummed on his desk, then he lifted the phone: “Miss Harcourt, please get me Mr. Considine at Rockland.” When he was located, MacBain said: ‘This is John MacBain again. Since Mr. Cornwall did not have the decency to inform me directly that Kinetic had been disposed of, I feel no obligation to inform him personally of the move I intend to make. Tell him when he finds time to see you that I am canceling all my affiliations with Kinetic as of this moment, eleven-thirty-eight, Tuesday, February fourteenth, 1989. And say that this message was my Valentine.’
In the anguished silence that followed I studied the faces of the editors and financial officers who would be affected by the demise of this great American company, at least in its historic guise. Several of the women and one of the men wept; others blew their noses furtively, and all looked distraught. Yvonne showed from the set of her jaw that her teeth were clenched, and she was the first to express the emotion that everyone felt: ‘We all ought to resign, too. I’m willing. Last month I promised to stay, but if they treat us this way, to hell with them, and I’m sure I can take most of my writers with me.’
When others made the same vow, MacBain surprised them by masking his own fury and speaking like the publishing statesman he had always been: ‘Friends, friends! Don’t make hasty decisions just because I had to. I’ve heard editors threaten before: “All my writers will quit with me,” but they rarely do. Nineteen times out of twenty, upon reflecting, they discover where their interest lies and stay put. Besides, Kastle will inherit a strongbox full of signed contracts, and believe me, your new owners are the kind of hard-nosed operators who will sue to enforce compliance. Ours has been a great, proud company. I’m sure it can find a decent life under the new conditions. Stay with it, I beg of you.’
When murmurs of defiance continued, he said with that touch of humor which had made him so successful in working with editors and authors: ‘Stop fighting the inevit
able. In the early years of this century my grandfather ran a livery stable. When the automobile came he didn’t rail against Henry Ford. He sold his horses, bought a Ford, and converted his stables into a profitable Ford dealership.’
When one of the editors pointed out: ‘But Ford was an American patriot,’ Yvonne, brought up in a strong pro-labor family that deplored Ford’s behavior as a union-buster, growled: ‘There were many who doubted that.’
At this gloomy moment one of the younger women editors said brightly: ‘At an Irish funeral there’s always food, and since this is a real funeral and I’m Irish, I’m going to get some beer and sandwiches.’ I saw Mr. MacBain slip her two ten-dollar bills.
During the wake one woman editor said: ‘I’ve followed this from the start and what appalled me was the contempt for books, the inability to find an American buyer for a great American company, the willingness of the money boys to ignore Mr. MacBain and even laugh at him. I feel humiliated, as if I too were being degraded, and I say openly: “Mr. MacBain, if you want to move to another publisher, I’m sure your editorial staff will go along if they’re invited.” ’
MacBain would have none of that. Almost laughing, he told his people: ‘Some of you would accompany me, and I love you for it, but, like the authors, most of you would finally see that you had to stay, mainly because jobs are not that plentiful out there.’
One editor, a reticent fellow who specialized in Western history and cowboys, startled me: ‘You’ll sound silly if you berate foreign ownership. Remember that much of our development west of the Mississippi was financed by foreign investors—our railroads, our irrigation ditches, our first factories.’
When one of the financial managers said: ‘I wasn’t aware of that,’ he gave a wan smile: ‘Most Americans don’t know. When they see John Wayne swaggering across the prairie on the way north to Dodge City with Montgomery Clift, they never reflect that these Americans are working on a ranch owned by some capitalist in Dundee, Scotland. Most of the great ranches of the West were financed and managed by men with names like Angus MacTavish, not an honest American in the lot. If the Germans give us good management, we’ll survive.’ On that solitary ray of hope, the meeting broke up.
Yvonne described the episode that summarized the situation prevailing when the storms subsided: ‘All senior editors were summoned to a meeting with our new boss, Oxford-trained Ludwig Ludenberg, whom we called General Ludendorff behind his back, and as the meeting ended, he asked me to remain. “They tell me you’ve been thinking of leaving Kinetic,” and I replied: “You could say that of everyone in the meeting.”
‘With great earnestness he said: “With Mr. MacBain leaving, you’re more needed than ever. With us your promotions are unlimited.”
‘I replied that I planned to stay for the time being. “And your authors?” The way he asked this, with a mix of eagerness and apprehension, revealed that he was more interested in them than in me, so I said: “Most of them, yes. Two of my Jews, no.”
‘ “Ms. Marmelle, in Kastle there is no Jew or Gentile, no black or yellow or white. Do you have a black woman as one of your assistant editors, personally, that is?”
‘ “No.”
‘ “Get one. Pay the going rate. Black, and a woman.” We shook hands and the interview ground to a halt.’
The debacle at Kinetic strengthened my resolve to begin a new intellectual life, and I made a resounding start with my three-part article in The New York Review of Books. It was so unequivocal that perceptive readers had to see that I had returned to my earlier style of deep commitment expressed in telling phrases. I felt that I was back on track, and this newfound honesty occasioned three changes in my life. I broke the seal of silence about my move to Temple, informing Yvonne of my switch at the end of term. When she heard the news she congratulated me on its boldness: ‘Leaving the comfortable cocoon at Mecklenberg and diving into the maelstrom of a central-city university—that takes courage. I’m proud of you, Karl,’ but then she grew pensive: ‘Of course, I’ve noticed with writers that when you make a major change in one aspect of your writing life you can be expected to make comparable changes in all else. You’ll probably be leaving Kinetic one of these days, which means that you’ll be leaving me, too. And that’s sad.’
I assured her that I had no intention of doing either: ‘You and Kinetic launched me. Temple would never have heard of me otherwise. I’m yours for keeps.’
But I did make a complete break with my two students, Timothy Tull and Jenny Sorkin. At last I accepted the fact that I’d done all I could for them and that they must now go their own ways without further interference from me. I used the word ways in the plural because I still vaguely hoped that Timothy would not ruin the beginning of his adult life by contracting a hideously improper marriage with her, but even that I left to chance. I was no longer involved.
The third consequence of my articles on Kinetic was the most important. As if the gods wanted to test my new commitment to courage, the editors of The New York Times Book Review telephoned to say that with the forthcoming publication of Lukas Yoder’s final novel in his octet they wished to show respect to both the book and his general track record, and since I was well acquainted with the Pennsylvania Dutch country, they were prepared to give me not only the front page for a review, but also a full page in the back for a separate wrap-up of the man and his works.
Since this was the kind of presentation that would confirm my rebirth as a serious critic I told the caller: ‘I’d be honored. Send it down. I’ll work to your schedule.’
But when I took one of my last walks along the Wannsee to plot the course of my review and the attendant essay, I gradually awakened to the many reasons why I should have refused: I’m too closely bound to Yoder to do either his book or him justice. I’ve grown to dislike him and his work. But I really can’t ignore the fact that his generosity to Mecklenberg provided the funds on which my writing course prospered. However, I still despise his sententious display that night at the Longfellow talk when he prattled on about that sorry poet’s one good line, ‘Like ships that pass in the night.’ Also, he hurt me deeply when my novel Cistern was so hammered by the critics. He added to the damage by saying: ‘Karl’s novel doesn’t sing,’ which was hateful. Of course, I learned later that what he really said was: ‘It’s a fine work in every respect but one. It doesn’t sing.’ Deep down I still resented his intrusion into the professional lives of my students Tull and Sorkin. And I confess that there was residual bitterness from that period when I honestly believed that I could write a better novel than he’d done. And finally it irritated me beyond words that he had preempted my Pennsylvania Dutch country in writing his successful books.
Had I been sensitive to the proprieties, I would have recognized that I had a score of reasons to recuse myself from writing a review of Yoder’s novel, but at that point in my life I did not yet know the meaning of that profoundly moral word. A judge who knows that his personal relationship to the claimant standing before him is so intimate that he might be swayed either to favor the man unduly or treat him too harshly, is morally bound to inform the court: ‘For personal reasons I recuse myself from this case.’ In the same way, responsible critics recuse themselves when asked to review a book by a friend. In the Yoder case I should certainly have recused, but I didn’t.
My reasoning, which at the time I deemed commendable, was that I wanted to use Yoder’s bland, run-of-the-mill fiction as an example of the kind of writing I could no longer tolerate and which, from my restored eminence as a serious critic, I had to oppose. After the most severe self-analysis, I persuaded myself, as I took my place at the typewriter to summarize Yoder and his work, that I had cleansed myself of any animosity toward the man. If I was about to make harsh judgments it wasn’t that I disliked him but only his flaccid novels. I never worked with purer intentions or produced more sulfurous results.
I can only surmise what must have happened when my review and essay reached the Times, but I’m to
ld that someone at the paper surreptitiously called Yvonne Marmelle and said: ‘Sunday, two written by your Karl Streibert.’
I think that Yvonne, by one of the devices of which she was a master, must have got hold of a copy of my review, or rather a complete summary, for two days after I mailed it my phone began jangling. A variety of friends in writing and publishing called to inform me that she had spoken to them in honeyed phrases, striving to establish Yoder and his book as ornaments in American intellectual life while crucifying me as a fool and an ingrate. It became clear that she was engaging in what politicians in the last presidential election had called ‘spin control,’ influencing public opinion either before the event took place or soon thereafter.
She was selective in whom she called and overpowering in her determination to nullify my adverse review. She also, as far as I could judge from what my friends told me, hoped to persuade the Times to kill my longer analysis of the defunct Yoder career, and I gained an image of her as one of those fire fighters in Western states who appear on television, tired and sooty, to explain how they are building backfires to deprive the big blaze of oxygen.