At Random : The Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf

Rating:
Summary: "Random" Recollections From A Publishing Giant
Review: Bennett Cerf's legendary career had him founding, leading, then selling one of the world's pre-eminent publishing houses, writing best-selling anthology and humor collections, speaking live and appearing weekly on the "What's My Line?" quiz program. He assembled much of his oral history through transcribed interviews and journals for what would be his autobiography, which he planned to write before dying in 1971.

His family, most notably son Christopher, assembled "At Random" from Cerf's exhaustive life chronicles. His family focused it, according to their introduction, "primarily about publishing and (Cerf's) pre-eminent role in it."

The result is a fascinating story which assembles Cerf's life and career as businessman, newspaperman, TV celebrity and, finally, his role as husband, father, and friend (a lovingly remembered childhood, glimpses of his marriages and family, loving remembrances of friends and co-workers from George Gershwin to Moss Hart.)

Cerf knew and published some of the 20th century's most well-known and beloved authors. "At Random" teems with anecdotes and personal remembrances of James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Dorothy Parker, Sinclair Lewis (with some frank critique of his career), William Faulkner, and Ayn Rand. Cerf also crosses paths with legends like New York's Cardinal Spellman (who shares an unusual lunch date with author John O'Hara) Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, and General David Sarnoff who, at the book's conclusion, clashes with Cerf over a fraction in Random House's sale price to RCA.

"At Random" has much to teach about publishing, its machinations and the egos and careers of its stars, the authors. But you come away wanting to know Bennett Cerf better: his political liberalism, hot temper, love of celebrity and of language. He hints at each in his narrative, only leading you to wish other quotes and remembrances could have been included in an addendum to this lovingly compiled book.. (Excerpts from some of his still popular pun collections may have helped.)

"At Random" examines the life and legacy of a celebrity too rare amid an increasingly sordid and more coarse media landscape - an author and businessman who became a TV celebrity first, celebrating the brief period when books were as anticipated and celebrated as films and recorded music are today. It's essential for anyone appreciating 20th century classic literature and history, a love letter to its first star authors and, by proxy, the man who published them.

Rating:
Summary: "HE GAVE FULL MEASURE TO HIS PROFESSION"
Review: It was Cerf's intention to write AT RANDOM using as a basis the transcriptions of 21 question and answer interviews conducted by Mary R. Hawkins of Columbia University's Oral History program. Unfortunately, he died before he could edit these thousand or so pages into a cohesive manuscript. The good news was that he had discussed his intentions with the editors of this book, and they feel that they have brought his intentions to fruition.

They not only used the aforementioned transcripts, but they also made use of the copious diaries that he had kept since his student days at Columbia University. In addition to that, they had his scrapbooks and many articles he had written which came in handy where clarification was needed.

The resulting book is not just a biography of Bennett Cerf's life. It is also a history of the publishing business, centering, of course around the company he had co-founded, Random House, and containing a number of anecdotes about writers, entertainers, politicians, editors, power-brokers, and just plain everyday people, and, in addition, it is a condensed history of the U.S. for the first three quarters of the twentieth century.

Through the course of the book we are given insights into the characters and personalities of such diverse persona as Eugene O'Neill, Robert Sherwood, Ayn Rand, George Gershwin, Moss Hart, Irwin Shaw, Harry Truman, Douglas MacArthur and many, many more with whom Cerf had business and/or personal relations. No matter how difficult the person was to deal with (and many of them were) he could usually find some redeeming features. There were one or two exceptions to this, but I'll let you read the book to find out who and why.

Along the way, Cerf was instrumental in building the company, Random House, that he had co-founded and nursed through its infancy, from a single office with four or five people to a publicly owned organization, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and one with a book list that included a number of authors and titles that anyone would be proud to represent. Many of the books Random House brought out were Pulitzer Prize winners, Book-of-the-Month Club selections, etc. He was also responsible for bringing the Modern Library to its prominent current position in the book industry. On the reverse side of the coin, he was also responsible for bringing out a few real stinkers.

Along with his business acumen, Cerf built up a reputation of honesty and integrity. He was well liked by almost everyone who knew him and was respected for his compassion and sense of humor.

When he died, THE SATURDAY REVIEW OF LITERATURE carried an obituary that included the words I used for the title of this review. AT RANDOM concludes with an excerpt from this obituary.

Rating:
Summary: Cerf's Up!!!
Review: When all of us who are now officially Older Than Dirt were growing up back in the 1960's, we usually aspired to be one of three particular men of achievement. For those of us with an athletic bent, Mickey Mantle was the man of choice. For those adventurers and dreamers among us, John Glenn appeared to offer the perfect life. Finally, for us bookish sorts, Bennett Cerf, publisher of Random House, panelist on "What's My Line," author of some of the worst puns ever written, and all around man about town, was who we aspired to be. This book is in essence his memoirs, told in oral history format just a short time before his unexpected death in 1971. He describes in detail why he was able to grow Random House at such a rapid rate: in his day, the book business was a stuffy one, and no publisher worth his salt would dream of lowering himself to seek out new authors. Bennett, being young, foolish, and very intelligent, would travel to wherever these authors lived and impress them with his obvious wit and sincerity. The sheer number and weight of authors whose service he was able to acquire through these means was absolutely staggering: Eugene O'Neill, James Joyce, Robinson Jeffers, Gertrude Stein, and Bill Styron, to name a very few. Through his liberal editing policies, he was even able to publish authors whose ideas he completely disagreed with, such as Ayn Rand. Some, like playwright Moss Hart, became lifelong friends. Although New Yorkers have long thought of their city as the center of the universe, Bennett's long and storied career made many believe it was true. The reader will enjoy his chatty, breezy style time and again, as a reminder that at one time, in the world of books and publishing, one man truly made a difference.