Luke Janklow: Not Exactly Bookish

Erin Baiano for The New York Times

Luke Janklow traded the rock 'n' roll road for a literary path as an agent at Janklow & Nesbitt.

By LAURA M. HOLSON - Published: June 14, 2013 - The New York Times

It was a breezy afternoon in early June, and Luke Janklow, the heir apparent to the powerful literary agent Morton L. Janklow, was trying to recall what he had been up to the last month. “I don’t go out that much,” he said, opening the calendar on his computer in his 13th-floor office overlooking Park Avenue.

Luke Janklow with Stella Schnabel and his father, Morton Janklow.  Clint Spaulding/PatrickMcMullan.com

Luke Janklow with Jemima Khan. Dave M. Benett/Getty Images

Mr. Janklow and Meredith Melling Burke.  PatrickMcMullan

Mr. Janklow with his ex-wife, Julie Daniels, at their closed Sweetiepie restaurant.Patrick Mcmullan/Patrickmcmullan.com

Anderson Cooper, a boyhood friend of Mr. Janklow’s, can tell a tale or two about the good old days. Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated Press

Gwyneth Paltrow is among Luke Janklow’s boldface clients. Mike Marsland/Getty Images

Luke Janklow. - Erin Baiano for The New York Times

He began May at the Carolina Nitsch Project Room on West 22nd Street, where he attended a Thursday-night opening for the artist Richard Dupont. A few days later, Mr. Janklow and his girlfriend, Stella Schnabel, a daughter of the artist Julian Schnabel, attended “Macbeth” to see Alan Cumming, Mr. Janklow’s client and the star of the play.

“That was a long night,” Mr. Janklow said with a shudder of what now seemed like recognition. There had been drinks in Mr. Cumming’s dressing room after the show and a dinner for eight at Carbone that lasted past 1 a.m. Three days later Mr. Janklow had lunch at Lafayette with two more clients: the members of the Beastie Boys, Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz, to discuss their biography with Spiegel & Grau, scheduled for 2015.

He also showed up at the ArtsConnection benefit at the behest of his mother, Linda, the charity’s founding chairman and a descendant of the Warner Bros. movie dynasty, before heading to Montauk, where he spent Memorial Day weekend at the cottage of Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch, designers of the Boom Boom Room and the Ace Hotel.

For a man who doesn’t go out much, Mr. Janklow certainly gets around. Indeed — weaving through Manhattan traffic on a motorcycle in a pair of worn bluejeans or at the racetrack practicing his stunt driving skills — he may be the last man having fun in book publishing, an industry that has gone from late nights at Elaine’s to hand-wringing about the Kindle. 

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