Muse
By: Jonathan Galassi
Publisher: Jonathan Cape
Published: 2015
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 251
ISBN-13: 9780224102414
Subjects: Publishers and publishing; Fiction
Description: Paul Dukach is heir apparent at Purcell & Stern, one of the last independent publishing houses in New York, whose shabby offices belie the treasures of its list. Thanks to his boss, the flamboyant Homer Stern, Paul learns the vagaries of the book world: how to work an agent over lunch and swim with the literary sharks at Frankfurt book fair; how to marry flattery with criticism when combing over the manuscripts of brilliant, volatile authors. But though things can be shaky in the age of conglomerates and e-books, Paul remains obsessed by one dazzling writer: poet Ida Perkins, whose outsize life and audacious verse have shaped America's contemporary literary landscape, and whose longtime publisher " also her cousin and erstwhile lover " happens to be Homer's biggest rival.