Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction by Laura B. McGrath
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
As a serious, in-depth look at how the publishing industry works, it is a valuable exploration of the role of the literary agent: the cadre of overwhelmingly young, white women (and a few men) who serve as gatekeepers of the dreaded slush pile: the torrent of manuscripts sent in by hopeful writers, seeking for a chink in the armor-plated parapet to squeeze their stories through into the wide world of readers. They read, they choose, they work their connections, they gamble, cajole, gossip, trade favors, and haggle to get the highest dollar and/or the best deal from the editors who then choose who flies and who is politely rejected. If a writer is very lucky, goes to the right workshops, graduates from the right MFA program, follows the right people 0n social media, eats lunch at the right restaurants, maybe gets a story or two published in the right magazines… maybe they’ll have a shot. And if they do get published….60 percent of debut novelists don’t publish a second book. It’s all a rather appallingly clubby, insular business, having less to do with the quality of writing than with marketability and connections. In short, for an aspiring writer, it’s incredibly depressing.
This book began as Laura McGrath’s dissertation. She interviews agents, shadows their meetings, trawls the Frankfurt Book Fair, gathers lots of data on prizes, sales, profiles, PR, advances, etc. Sometimes it’s a bit too much, can get a bit repetitious, but certainly is a trove of stats. I wasn’t as interested in the machinations of negotiating foreign publication rights, but to know that only 3% of the American market is literature in translation is illuminating (and also depressing). It’s still more depressing to read how editors always say they’re looking for “new and fresh and different,” but as one agent put it with a grimace: “So I offer something new and fresh and different on a plate, and they just want to know where are the comps?! [comparable titles]”
Much to ponder, much to sigh over. But McGrath paints a fairly lively portrait of how book sausage is made.
View all my reviews