ANDREW WYLIE LE MONDE INTERVIEW

As The Literary Saloon noted last week, Andrew Wylie has granted a rare interview to Le Monde.  Since this tremendously influential figure doesn't sit down with the press every day, we've gone ahead and translated the interview for you, the loyal TEV reader. 

A word of caution.  Our French is rudimentary, at best, and this translation constitutes a down-and-dirty take on the article, bereft of nuance or grace - "Workmanlike" is how our college journalism advisor would have described it.  With apologies to Mr. Wylie and Le Monde, the management takes responsbility for any infelicities.  Any emailed corrections will be posted.

Alors, here we go:

Andrew Wylie: I will always champion complexity.

When one sends an email to Andrew Wylie on a Paris morning, the answer arrives a little before noon. It’s not yet 6:00 a.m. in New York. The best-known, most dreaded and most respected literary agent in the US and Europe begins his day around 5:00 a.m., in order to work with the London office of his agency.

From his New England birth and education, the 59-year-old Wylie retains a Bostonian demeanor, reserve and accent. A literary agent since 1980, he doesn’t discuss his past. His mysteriousness and toughness in business is enough to exasperate some, as much as it charms others.

“It’s easy, Andrew changed my life,” says Philip Roth, whereas Roger Straus (1917-2004), Roth’s longtime editor, advised Wylie, in his own words, to “go fuck himself” when he demanded a tremendous advance for his client. “He can be a pain in the ass,” he added, “he has his shortcomings but he’s brilliant, he’s truly the most intelligent agent of them all. He knows how to read and he has great taste.” From his studies at Harvard, he retains a passion for Rimbaud. And, when the conversation turns to matters of literary taste, Andrew Wylie isn’t satisfied merely to quote Joyce, he recites with ease a entire passage from Finnegans Wake. His aggressiveness, he acknowledges, he puts at the service of his writers and the future of their books, as he recalls in this interview.

Are you going to the Frankfurt Book Fair this week? Is it really useful to you? Many editors say that from now on the most important transactions are made elsewhere.

I’m going to Frankfurt, as I have every year for the last twenty years. For my colleagues and myself, it’s extremely important. We have a stand in hall 8 (H928). The agency has eight people there who sell the foreign rights for the 600 authors we represent. I know that for certain editors, the Frankfurt Book Fair no longer represents a real stake. For us, it’s the complete opposite – it’s the biggest time of the year.

You’ve long been considered the most aggressive agent in the world. You’ve been called a “mad dog,” nicknamed “The Jackal,” and you have embraced these terms. However, just last year, at Barcelona, at an international conference on the future of publishing, your talk received approving applause from a room full of editors. It was said that you’d become the wise man and conscience of publishing.

The wise man ... the conscience ... it’s generally what one says about people at their funeral! As for embracing being a “mad dog,” indeed, I did it, I’d had enough of hearing all the cliches about me. It’s ridiculous. Ultimately, here, in any case – it might be less evident in Europe – there’s a permanent war between purely commercial books and the place they’re given, and literature, and the place it’s given. I created this agency with a specific goal: to convince editors that it was necessary to do away with thinking in the short term, with the overvaluation of commercial products and the undervaluation of literature. And to try to remember their intellectual obligations.

You’ve said that you asked, in 1979, this question: How can I read what I want to read and make enough money to live? In that case, why didn’t you simply become an editor, like your father?

I tried. I went for an interview at the home of an editor I won’t name. She asked me what I had just read. I answered Thucydides. She asked me whether I’d read James Michener. I said it didn’t interest me. The conversation ended there. Then, I went to see a friend, also unnamed, at Random House. He advised me to take my chances as an agent. I had a simple idea in mind: If you can convince editors to pay a lot for a quality book, they will do what is necessary to sell it. That’s the power of money. Let’s take as an example my first client, I.F. Stone, with The Trial of Socrates. It’s1980. I’m trying to sell it to Random House. People said to me no one knows who Socrates is, and no one knows I.F. Stone. So I bought the rights to all of his books. I sold The Trial of Socrates to an editor for $100,000, which, at the time, was not an outrageous amount. The book became a best seller.

I’m sure this is the way to do it. If an editor spends a great deal for a book, he must make a big push for it and then explain to his house that something is at stake for them, and they’ve got to get it visibility in bookstores. We know that 30% of purchases are impulse buys. And generally, what the customer sees first, these are mediocre products. Instead, literature should go up front. I’m not claiming victory, you don’t succeed every time. I was trying to sell a book for two million dollars, and the editor was utterly disinterested. But most of the time, the process works and if there’s anything I’ll be proud of at the end of my life, it’s that I’ve had success putting Philip Roth, Martin Amis and some others out front in place of Danielle Steel, Tom Clancy and others.

I champion, I will always champion complexity. It’s why – with certain exceptions, like George Clooney or Steven Soderbergh - I drastically prefer literature to film. I’m even a bit allergic to movies. Everything is completely predictable, the rhythm of the action is never any good. I find it unbearable.

You had thirty authors when you began and, with your principles, it must have been difficult to make much money. Today you have the most prestigious client list – some say the most snobbish.

Undoubtedly the most snobbish!

I’ve lost some money over the years. I gave up 50% of my agency to the British. Then I bought back the shares. I opened my own office in London. Then an office in Madrid, which I closed after three years in order to concentrate on London, where I spend one week per month, and New York. I fight for the authors I love. I believe in the future of publishing. I believe that the fight, such as it is, between literature and commerce is going to continue. I understand how some editors can sometimes be pessimistic when 70 percent of the people in the business are trying to convince the world that The DaVinci Code is something interesting. Whereas it’s completely uninteresting.

I followed everything that took place in France concerning the sale of Vivendi Universal Publishing, which is a case in point, the concentration on playing the commercial card. But I’m not at all pessimistic, I’m actually utterly optimistic about literary publishing’s capacity to survive. And it’s not merely wishful thinking – that wouldn’t fit my reputation at all.

I even believe that the method of selling books will develop in a manner favorable to books of quality. The chains, which are extremely harmful, promoting only bad books, the quick sale and totally neglecting the back of the store, are losing ground. Thanks in particular to Amazon, which has been revolutionary. The market will be divided between Amazon and independent bookstores, which have been seriously damaged in the US but which will rebuild themselves. I’m certain the defeatists are wrong.

Finally, an annoying question: Why haven’t you any French authors on your list? Have you such scorn for French literature that not a single author seems worthy of your interest?

Absolutely not. Part of the reason is that the editorial system in France works differently*, few authors are represented by agents. But that’s not all. I read the authors I chose to represent. However, while I’m able to read sufficiently in Italian – and I do represent some contemporary Italian authors – I can’t really read French, although I used to speak French well enough. But I’m sad that French authors don’t currently export themselves better. I know there are many interesting contemporary French writers, though it’s rare that they are familiar to American readers. But if I want to represent the French, I will need to be able to read them in their native language. So, I’ll need to get my French back.

* TEV Note: Authors typically deal directly with their publishers.

Comments

[Jimmy Beck]

That's a great interview--merci beaucoup.

[stephan]

Thanks for this.

[Carolyn]

Thank goodness they didn't include his entire Finnegan's Wake passage -- I can only imagine it going to English to French and back again.

[Michelle]

A heartening interview. Thanks for the translation.

[Carole Curnow]

An interesting interview thankyou

[David H.]

So, if he champions good writing, why isn't he helping out, allying with other agents who are desperate about the low quality books out there, and who are really struggling on their own to stick to good literature?
It's funny how Mr.Wylie encourages the attitude that at the same time he pretends to be fighting. Maybe he is a Schizophrenic.