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| Fred Klein | |
Fred Klein, who worked at Bantam for nearly 35 years, died October 22. He was 97.
He started at Bantam Books in 1955 when the company, led by Oscar Dystel and Marc Jaffe, was becoming the country's leading mass market publisher. Klein "instilled a vigor to book promotion previously unseen," former colleagues wrote in a tribute. "Be it by sending Jacqueline Susann out to meet those route drivers who distributed her Valley of the Dolls or by painting blood-red paw prints in New York City crosswalks for The Wolfen, Fred directed a promotion group that used moxie and merchandising to turn Bantam authors into celebrities and their books into bestsellers.... Fred was a tireless organizer, advocate, and go-to guy who did more to make books available to anyone and everyone who wanted to read or listen to a book than did many presidents of publishing companies."
In the 1970s, Klein became an executive editor at Bantam, securing paperback rights to thrillers and movie tie-in novelizations by Robert Ludlum, Frederick Forsyth, Thomas Harris and many more.
Klein loved the theater, and his passion for musicals and all types of theatrical performances led to the tradition of the Bantam Revue. By cajoling and cudgeling colleagues into re-writing song lyrics about authors and editors, they performed this misanthropic medley at the December sales conference. He retired from Bantam in 1990 and relocated to Santa Barbara, Calif.
During a busy retirement, he served with the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, the Los Angeles Book Festival, the Santa Barbara Book & Author Festival, Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic, became a book reviewer for the Santa Barbara News-Press, and hosted Literary Gumbo, a local access TV program about books that ran for seven years with 227 interviews.
A memorial is being planned in New York City for May 27, 2021, which would have been Klein's 98th birthday. "Somehow we hope to put on a show, a tribute, a big loud encore performance for the greatest ringmaster the publishing world ever known." In the meantime, friends and former colleagues can share memories, photos and lyrics with Richard Hunt, Paul Fedorko, Jason Alderman or Nancy Pines.
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| Joan Bingham | |
Joan Bingham, longtime executive editor at Grove Atlantic, died Saturday, October 31, at age 85.
She helped create Grove Atlantic when Grove Weidenfeld and Atlantic Monthly Press merged in 1993, joining the new company as executive editor and serving on the board ever since. She acquired, edited and published more than 100 titles. Her authors and books included Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss, winner of the 2007 Booker Prize), David Von Drehle (Triangle: The Fire That Changed America), Gail Lumet Buckley (The Black Calhouns), Claire Keegan (Antarctica), Elizabeth Mitchell (Liberty's Torch) and Juliet Nicolson (The Perfect Summer and other titles). In addition, she oversaw the Grove Poetry series, publishing books by Kay Ryan (Best of It, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry), Claudia Rankine, Jesse Ball and Sarah Lindsay (Primate Behavior, finalist for the National Book Award).
Grove Atlantic publisher Morgan Entrekin said, "Everyone in the Grove family is deeply saddened by the news of Joan's passing. She was a beloved colleague, dear friend, and stalwart partner. Grove Atlantic would not exist without her original commitment and her continued support over almost three decades. We offer our condolences to Clara and her family, and our gratitude for everything Joan contributed to Grove for so many years. Joan may be gone but Grove will carry on as an independent literary publisher as I know she wanted."
Donations can be made in honor of Bingham at the Robin Hood Fund for Covid relief.