Stand by for the new Hollywood hero – the publisher…
Tuesday 17th August 2010 - Terence Blacker Blog

Even coming from the weird and wacked-out world of Tinseltown, the news that Sean Penn is to appear in a Hollywood biopic of Maxwell Perkins is somewhat startling. Perkins was a mild, courteous, self-effacing publisher’s editor.

He was, admittedly, such a brilliant editor that he has been a touchstone of quality and seriousness for those in the books business for over 60 years (“He’s not exactly Max Perkins, is he?” one author might say to another when asked about an editor).

As Scott Berg describes in his brilliant biography, Perkins did all the things a publisher should do, but rarely does. He was a brilliant judge of talent, editing among others, Thomas Wolfe, Erskine Caldwell, Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald. He had a good eye and a flawless sense of structure. He helped his authors through personal crises. He even lent them money.

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