Executive editor Deanne Urmy talks about working with Howard Norman.
You usually edit nonfiction, but you made an exception for this book. How did that happen?
How could I not?!
Since I edit so much nonfiction, when I read for pleasure, it's often fiction. I knew and loved Howard's work, so when the chance to edit him came up, I was excited to do it. I have edited a number of literary memoirs, and now have the icing on my editorial cake: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish Howard's memoir, I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place, in 2012.
What was it like to work with Howard? What did you have to do?
It was fantastic--scarily pleasurable. With nonfiction there are so many things other than the writing that have to be considered: market overlap, liability, etc. When you have a Howard Norman novel, you've already bought into that voice. With nonfiction, the voice is often negotiable, trying to bring the author to the right voice. With Howard, no problem with that. I could read the novel as much as a reader as an editor. All I really had to do was watch for a few things, which was a pleasurable puzzle. For instance, when the family is eating lobster stew, but a few pages later they have forks in their hands, we changed the meal to salmon. The world you are in, the intensity of it, the physical world--you are so aware of it, it was easy to spot a tiny incongruity.
Being trained as an editor of literary nonfiction, I am aware of the current brutality of the marketplace. When I am editing, I know that a book has to have its selling points written into it--it has to be obvious; a lot of that subtle packaging goes on in my mind. When you're working with a master novelist like Howard, you can fall into his world so it's a pleasure and a relief.