Why Reprinting a Lost Novel Can Kill It Forever
Second Chances
Jonathan Lethem reviews the reissue of Wilfrid Sheed's 1966 novel Office Politics, about the dramas of running a literary magazine, and asks what reprints really do for a forgotten writer. His friend, bookseller Michael Seidenberg, called revival imprints "tombstones": presenting an author under the flag of rediscovery, he argued, only announces that no one cared in the first place.
Being published by one of those presses that only publishes revivals, it's the last heartbeat of a dying reputation. Presenting an author under the flag of rediscovery is the same thing as saying, 'No one cared in the first place.' After that, a book is officially dead forever.