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| Ann Godoff | |
Ann Godoff, "a percipient editor and intuitive publisher who cultivated the careers of dozens of novelists and nonfiction authors for more than three decades as the head of Random House and then of Penguin Press," died February 24, the New York Times reported. She was 76. Godoff's authors included Ron Chernow, E.L. Doctorow, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Thomas Pynchon, Tom Brokaw, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, William Styron, and Alice Waters. The literary agent Esther Newberg described her as "an author's publisher."
At Random House, Godoff was named executive editor in 1991 and rose to editor in chief and publisher of its trade publishing group "before being famously fired in a corporate restructuring in 2003," the Times noted. Soon afterward, she founded Penguin Press, where she was editor-in-chief and publisher.
Among the bestselling books Godoff published were John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994) and Caleb Carr's The Alienist (1995). More recently, she edited and published A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot; the memoir Young Man in a Hurry by California Governor Gavin Newsom; and Michael Pollan's A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness. One of the last books she edited was a memoir by former Times critic and columnist Frank Rich that will be published next year.
Godoff also "was known for making big bets on celebrity authors," including an $8.5 million advance to Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman whose memoir, The Age of Turbulence, became a hardcover nonfiction bestseller in 2007, the Times noted.
Bill Shore, author of The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back (1999), recalled meeting her to propose his book: "Ann Godoff described the book she'd like to see written, the book she said she'd want to read. She went into what I could only describe as a literary jazz riff for about 20 minutes. Her tempo increased as she spoke. She concluded by saying, 'So, if that's what you want to write, if you want to write a book about the cathedral within, then that's a book I want to buy.' "
Chernow, author of Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., said: "I always saw Ann as a double threat: an astute editor but also a superb publisher. She not only had a flawless sense of what would sell and what wouldn't, but a gift for how to position a book in a crowded literary marketplace."
"Ann influenced generations of editors and publishers by showing us, through her example, that you can champion works of cultural significance while still being commercially successful.... If there were a Hall of Fame for book publishing, Ann would be voted in on the first ballot," said Jonathan Karp, a former Random House editor-in-chief and now CEO of Simon & Schuster.
She began her publishing career as a part-timer typing mailing labels for Alice Mayhew, an editor at Simon & Schuster. Godoff later became an editor and was promoted to senior editor. She worked for Simon & Schuster from 1980 to 1986, when the Atlantic Monthly Press hired her as editor-in-chief. She joined Random House in 1991.
Annik LaFarge, who married Godoff in 2012, recalled her favorite story, which occurred in California in 1960 when Godoff's mother helped host a fundraiser for John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign at the home of actor Tony Curtis.
"Someone had the idea to pose young Ann--she was 11--at the end of the diving board of the pool, and Frank Sinatra sang to her 'Thank Heaven for Little Girls,' " LaFarge said. "I can just imagine her face as he sang, 'Those little eyes so helpless and appealing/ One day will flash/ And send you crashing through the ceiling'.... For all her formidable prowess, she'll always be, for me, the little girl at the edge of the diving board."