seeceeread 's review for:

Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship by Dana A. Williams

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💭 "Morrison appreciated any stylistic or aesthetic approach that made readers feel they were being let in on a secret."

A celebrity tell-all, a cookbook, a short story collection, a history of trains, a textual documentary of Black life, novels, an autobiography of a movement ... Morrison committed fully to 47 projects in twelve years. Williams reveals what Morrison called the "hard, important work that no one really talks about"—securing competitive contracts, crossing out, wrangling copy edits and wayward authors, completing acronyms, teasing apart sections, distinguishing voice, questioning characters ...

Books by Black authors are mostly Williams' focus—Muhammad Ali and June Jordan, Lucille Clifton and Angela Davis, Gayl Jones and Toni Cade Bambara, Huey P. Newton and Leon Forrest—though we also learn about folks like Melville Herskovits' (Cultural Relativism) and Boris Bittker's (Case for Black Reparations). Knowing that a role like hers was a time-sensitive response to cultural pressures, Morrison was determined to leave a record: Books that sold well and elevated Black voices.

We see over and over that beyond identifying narrative arc or summative description, beyond rearranging sections or clarifying prose ... Morrison actively promoted the books she edited: Speaking about them at events where she appeared as an author. Aggressively seeking radio spots and interviews and introductory essays and blurbs and critiques. Jockeying for space at relevant events to lob titles at potential readers. Morrison's confidence shines, too. She often treated critiques and sidesteps as insolence and even a lack of trust in her judgment or skills, leading to disappointment in the other person.

I still have so many questions! What spats and successes and shenanigans did she observe at Random? To what extent was Morrison more or less heavy-handed than peers? Accurate in predicting modest runs or great wins? How did she experience Silberman as a boss? What did people actually say in Williams' interviews?

There are several spots where transitions felt lacking; we abruptly jump to another book, another author and I'm not sure why there's no space between paragraphs or header or sentence to mark the shift (or why these items are in the same chapter).

Overall, as with just about everything Toni, I'm giddy with gratitude to contextualize a genius ✨️