‘Muse’: A Fictional Sendup of the Publishing Industry

In his debut novel ‘Muse,’ Jonathan Galassi recreates the sex-fueled early days of Farrar, Straus 

Jonathan Galassi. Photo: Annabel Clark for The Wall Street Journal

Jennifer Maloney - 

May 21, 2015 4

In “Muse,” the comedic debut novel by publisher Jonathan Galassi, there is a certain black rotary phone.
On a private line installed in his office, the fictional publisher Homer Stern—a character based on Farrar, Straus co-founder Roger Straus—receives calls on this phone from lady friends, to the annoyance of his secretary, with whom he is having an affair.

The phone is real, and so is its story. It belonged to Mr. Straus, who kept it on a table next to a chaise longue in his office at the company’s shabby old headquarters at Union Square in Manhattan. Now the phone sits, unconnected, on the desk of Mr. Galassi, who took the reins from his longtime mentor to become president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2002. 

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