How I proofread my way to Philip Roth’s heart

Mary Norris has been a ‘comma queen’ at the New Yorker for 20 years, coping with grammar, punctuation – and some of the world’s most celebrated writers. This extract from her book, Between You & Me, dots and crosses the i’s and t’s

‘Prose goddess’: Mary Norris, New Yorker copy editor and author of Between You & Me – Confessions of a Comma Queen. Photograph: Josh Haner/NYT/Eyevine

Mary Norris

Sunday 10 May 2015 - The Observer

Let’s get one thing straight right from the beginning: I didn’t set out to be a comma queen. The first job I ever had, the summer I was 15, was checking feet at a public pool in Cleveland. I was a “key girl” – “Key personnel” was the job title on my pay stub (I made $75 a week). I never knew what that was supposed to mean. I was not in charge of any keys, and my position was by no means crucial to the operation of the pool, although I did clean the bathrooms.

Everyone had to follow an elaborate ritual before getting into the pool: tuck your hair into a hideous bathing cap (if you were a girl), shower, wade through a footbath spiked with disinfectant that tinted your feet orange, and stand in line to have your toes checked. This took place at a special wooden bench, like those things that shoe salesmen use, except that instead of a miniature sliding board and a size stick for the customer’s foot it had a stick with a foot-shaped platform on top.
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And another story from The Observer:
Mary Norris: ‘The comma, I’m amused to discover, is far more controversial than my sister’s transsexuality’     Interview by Kate Kellaway