Description
Book SynopsisGenet
Beckett
Burroughs
Miller
Ionesco, Oe, Duras. Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. Hubert Selby Jr. and John Rechy. The legendary film
I Am Curious (Yellow). The books that assaulted the fort of propriety that was the United States in the 1950s and ’60s,
Lady Chatterley’s Lover and
The Tropic of Cancer. The Evergreen Review. Victorian erotica.”
The Autobiography of Malcolm X. A bombing, a sit-in, and a near-fistfight with Norman Mailer. The common thread between these disparate elements, a number of which reshaped modern culture, was Barney Rosset.
Rosset was the antidote to the trope of the gentleman publisher” personified by other pioneering figures of the industry such as Alfred A. Knopf, Bennett Cerf and James Laughlin. If Barney saw a crowd heading one wayhe looked the other. If he knew something was forbidden, he regarded it as a plus. Unsurprisingly, financial ruin, along with the highs and lows of critical reception, marked his career. But his unswerving dedication to publishing what he wanted made him one of the most influential publishers ever.
Rosset began work on his autobiography a decade before his death in 2012, and several publishers and a number of editors worked with him on the project. Now, at last, in his own words, we have a portrait of the man who reshaped how we think about language, literatureand sex. Here are the stories behind the filming of Norman Mailer’s
Maidstone and Samuel Beckett’s
Film; the battles with the US government over
Tropic of Cancer and much else; the search for Che’s diaries; his romance with the expressionist painter Joan Mitchell, and more.
At times appalling, more often inspiring, never boring or conventional: this is Barney Rosset, uncensored.
Illustrated with black-and-white photographs; includes index
Trade ReviewPraise for Rosset "Vivid and informative—a must for anyone interested in 20th-century American publishing and culture." —
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A candid self-portrait...a colorful and rollicking history." —
Publishers Weekly "Barney Rosset to me represents the literary world of the latter half of the 20th century. ... No amount of words will be adequate to express my gratitude to Barney Rosset." —Kenzaburō Ōe
"Barney Rosset was not an anonymous publisher for me. When I speak about my publisher in New York I never say 'Grove Press,' I always say 'Barney Rosset.'" —Jean Genet
"Barney Rosset, whose guts and wisdom made it possible for me to read Beckett and all the other writers published by Grove, the one-in-a-million Barney Rosset, America's bravest publisher." —Paul Auster
Table of ContentsTable of Contents FOREWORD
1: An Irish Ancestry: From Ould Sod to the New Land
2: Progressive Educations: Experimental Schools and Falling in Love
3: Off to College, Off to War
4: China: The Forgotten Theater
5: "The Liberators": Shanghai and the Return Home
6: Jon Mitchell: The Beginning
7: Partings and Beginnings: Joan, the Hamptons, and Early Grove
8: Samuel Beckett
9: Grove Theater: Harold Pinter and Other Playwrights
10: Into the Fray:
Lady Chatterley's Lover 11: A Return to Film:
Film, I Am Curious (Yellow) and Other Celluloid Adventures
12: Profiles in Censorship: Henry Miller and
Tropic of Cancer 13: Maurice Girodias
14: The Beats and
Naked Lunch 15: Revolutionaries:
Evergreen, Che Guevara, and the Grove Bombing
16: Attack from Within, Attack from Without
17: My Tom Sawyer: Kenzaburō Ōe
18:
Eleuthéria 19: A Nightmare in the Stone Forest
END NOTES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
APPENDICES
INDEX
