Faith Sale

[Doug Millison]

REMEMBERING FAITH

One of the ironclad rules I used to enforce on myself as a book review
editor was to never get close to authors, agents or editors. The reason
seemed obvious  - critical judgment is easily impaired by personal
attachment - but sometimes the rule caused a bit of amusement.

When a marketing director wanted to visit the Book Review with
the editor-in-chief from his house, I felt I had to decline. Having watched
the editor-in-chief from afar for years, I had come to admire him almost too
much.

Talking with him about the books he had edited would create the kind
of  tug on the emotions that might surface when a review copy came in and
I'd think, oh, this is the editor-in-chief's book, rather than this is the
next
book by the author of such-and-such, or this is a novel by a new writer, and
so forth.

Well, you don't have to meet the editor-in-chief, the
marketing director joked:  I'll talk to you in your office, and the
editor-in-chief can stand outside the door making hand signals.

Okay, so the ironclad rule sounded silly to some people. And it was true
that on occasion I did talk briefly with editors and even asked them
about new projects and new writers. But phoning or lunching or chatting
with them were no-no's.

Except for Faith Sale.

She was a respected editor (Macmillon, Dutton) who had been
working at Putnam for only a few years when I first met her at
Keene's Chop House, a favorite lunch place of Russell Snyder, then the
advertising manager of Putnam.

In those days (early '80s,)  my colleague Bill Chleboun and
I visited publishers every year to talk about advertising in the Book
Review. Russ - very much of the Gentlemen's Profession school of
publishing - was a master at the long, gossipy  publishing luncheon in which
a lot more than advertising rates were exchanged, I'll tellya.

I didn't know Faith the first time she appeared at the luncheon with Russ,
but I remember how quickly the texture of conversation changed. She
talked about books and language and authors  as part of the larger mosaic of
literary life that's so often invisible in the day-to-day doings of the book
industry. She talked about that rare editor's joy of discovering a writer
right on the page, right in the middle of a sentence, right in the midst of
an offbeat phrasing or unexpected metaphor.

It was a thrill to hear an editor of such experience talk so calmly
yet ferociously, I felt, about the very heart of our business. And of course
a bridge developed that violated every aspect of my so-called ironclad rule.
There are few people I can admit to puddling up over the placement of a
comma, but she was one.

It astonished me how many times a book I thought had simply rolled off a
writer's pen had in fact been rewritten and revised to reach a higher
standard that Faith Sale represented to the author. This was not an imposed
standard - Faith was too respectful of the writing process for that.
Rather it was a standard so deeply ingrained  in authors' minds that very
often they didn't know they had it.

How does an editor pull from the core of a writer's talent? I wondered. How
do you inspire authors to take risks they would never attempt otherwise?
Well, you believe in them, Faith said.

She went on to discuss things like
author intention, finding a voice, working with metaphor and (bless
her) placement of commas. But it was her belief in writers that inspired
many of the authors she worked with to
"trust her with my life's
work," as Kaye Gibbons told Poets & Writers magazine recently. "Faith keeps
me honest," echoed Kurt Vonnegut.

Over the years I felt that Faith represented two absolutes in the book
business. First, she worked for one of the most commercial houses in
mainstream publishing, yet she proved that everyone in the house - and by
extension everyone in the book industry - took personal pride in working
with a well-written literary work, even if it started out with only
a few thousand copies.

Second, as convulsive changes in publishing created a system that was
often ruthless toward writers, Faith maintained an unabashed love for
writers, and especially for the author-editor relationship.  "The process
of helping to shape and polish the work of a writer I admire can be an act
of love," she said in the Poets & Writers story.  "Sitting home with a
manuscript, pencil in hand, studying somebody's writing - this is what I
still do and love to do."

I thought after Faith contracted cancer that it might be too exhausting for
her to go to lunch with us, but year after year during her increasingly
painful battle she sat at the lunch tables of various places - Russ Snyder
had retired and passed on long ago - chatting away about writing and
authors, looking thinner and more gaunt sometimes yet stronger and more
vital than ever at other times. I have never seen a person face the work at
hand - whatever it was, editing or fighting to live - with
greater dignity or resilience.

Faith Sale died Tuesday night during a series of surgical procedures that
finally proved too much for her. One can be consoled by the fact that though
their numbers are dwindling, editors in the mainstream still exist who value
high standards of writing and are able to champion literary works through
the publishing
process. Of course (and I say this with all respect),  I hope never to get
to know any of them.

But the next time I come across something by an author who was
edited by Faith Sale, I won't say to myself, oh look, here's a book by Amy
Tan, Kaye Gibbons, Lee Smith, Donald Barthelme, Connie May Fowler, Kurt
Vonnegut, Alice Hoffman, Bebe Moore Campbell, Delia Ephron or a dozen
others.

Instead I'll probably run my hand over the cover and say,  oh look,
it's one of Faith's books.

from:
"Holt Uncensored" an online column by Pat Holt
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