R.I.P.

Robert Giroux

1914 – 2008

Book editor and publisher Robert Giroux, credited with advancing the careers of writers from T.S. Eliot to Jack Kerouac and Susan Sontag, died on Friday because he was f*cking old as dirt.

Giroux, one of the creators behind publishing giant Farrar, Straus & Giroux,(originally Farrar and Straus when Giroux was hired as editor in chief in 1955) was best known (at least to me) for his work over the years with Jack Kerouac.

Giroux worked on the publication of The Town and the City, Kerouac's first novel, but missed out on the opportunity to be involved with On The Road when he insulted Kerouac in his moment of jubilation.

According to Kerouac: A Biography by Ann Charters, Giroux "remembers that Kerouac phoned him..in great excitement to say he'd just finished On The Road."

Kerouac showed up in Giroux's office the next day with a "huge roll of paper under his arm and threw it across the floor shouting, 'Here's your novel!' Jack had pasted sheets of teletype paper together...to make one big roll. Giroux was so startled that he said the wrong thing: 'But Jack, how can you make corrections on a manuscript like that?"

Hurt and pissed off, Kerouac said he wouldn't change a word for anyone, rolled up his manuscript and disappeared from Giroux's life for several years.

Anyway, he's dead now.

Comments

[diesel]

I think more obits should list "f*cking old as dirt" as the cause of death.

[HeyJoe]

Diesel - it is quite fitting, I agree.

[leigh]

who?

seriously, i read on the road when i was younger and felt very worldly. picked it up recently...meh.

i hope i'm old as dirt when it's finally my turn.