Janet Berliner

A few weeks ago, publishing and the world lost one of its rare and wonderful beings, and so this month I pay my small tribute to add to those of many others before me.

During the winter of ’79, I went to New York on business. The main thrust of the trip was to meet one of the distinguished gentlemen of publishing, Mr. Larry Ashmead.

Larry’s habit was to be at his desk around dawn, or to have early breakfast meetings at Michael’s. Since I’m a morning person, I had no problem agreeing to the place or the time. By the time coffee was poured–and Michael’s waiters are fast–I knew I had met someone I’d always want in my life. Not only does he know everyone in and everything about publishing, he has a delicious and often evil sense of humor and is a storyteller par excellence. Regrettably, I can’t repeat the stories he has told me through the years, but they were doozies.

I can say this to him: When Blaise Pascal wrote in his Provincial Letters, “The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter,” he knew whereof he spoke. This book I am writing now, for example, began as a letter.

Many years ago, while eating bagels with you at Michael’s in Manhattan, I told you I wanted to write a book about my life. You said, “Take my advice. Wait until you’re famous.”

You would not have discouraged me, Larry, except for good reason. When I think of you, I think about Maxwell Perkins, about the Algonquin Round Table, about the stories you could tell if only you would. I think about your annual gift scrapbooks containing lovingly accumulated publishing absurdities, your love of science fiction and fantasy, and your ability to understand the commercial world of today without losing faith in the values of yesterday and the hope for tomorrow.

Wherever you are–methinks you would like to be in Tuscany–I say to you, I must write it now. I’m probably not famous enough yet, but I am growing long in the tooth and time grows short. I will try to make it a fraction as funny, as sad, as absurd, as intriguing to read, as my life has been to experience. I will jump carelessly between time zones, ages, stages, countries and personas. Because, you see, if I don’t do it now, I am in mortal danger of turning into a shawled Granny, desperately begging everyone to listen to her memoirs.

Meeting and knowing Larry was wonderful, and I will miss him always.