Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction (Hardcover)
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Description
A revealing account of how agents
have shaped book publishing and the literary canon from the 1950s to today
Middlemen rewrites literary
history from the perspective of one of its most important but least visible
figures: the literary agent. Chronicling the story of agents in the United
States from the 1950s to today, Laura McGrath uncovers their critical role in
the making of American literature. From the famed three-martini lunch to the
Frankfurt Book Fair, Middlemen takes readers behind the scenes
to show how agents influence what we read. Along the way, it explains why many
debut novelists never publish another book, why agents champion short story
collections even though they sell poorly, how agents advocate for writers of
color in a system that values whiteness, and why there are so many New York
novels.
Weaving together original archival research, data
analysis, and interviews with scores of agents and other publishing
professionals, Middlemen demonstrates that agents--eighty
percent of whom are in fact women--are much more than 'middlemen.' As
intermediaries between author and publisher, agents act as advocates,
matchmakers, negotiators, and tastemakers, and they must balance artistic
values with the commercial imperatives of publishing conglomerates. The book
describes the decisive role agents have played in celebrated novels--from Jack
Kerouac's On the Road to Colson Whitehead's The
Intuitionist--but also in the creation of entire literary categories like
the debut novel, the story collection, postmodernism, multiethnic fiction, and
world literature.
Featuring profiles of agents past
and present such as Sterling Lord, Lynn Nesbit, Candida Donadio, Marie Brown,
and Andrew Wylie, along with perspectives from agents at all stages of their
careers, Middlemen is an entertaining and eye-opening account
of how literary fiction--and the literary canon--is made.
| Author(s): | McGrath, Laura B |
|---|---|
| Book Type: | New Book |
| Genre: | Business Aspects, Publishers & Publishing Industry, Media Studies |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| ISBN-10: | 0691256160 |
| EAN: | 9780691256160 |
| Language: | English |
| Number of Pages: | 296 |
| Publication Date: | 2026-04-28 |
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Weight: | 1.3 Pounds |
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