Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship

by Barney Rosset

Genet…Beckett…Burroughs…Miller…Ionesco, Ōe, Duras. Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. Hubert Selby Jr. and John Rechy. The legendary film I Am Curious (Yellow). The books that assaulted the fort of propriety that was the United States in the 1950s and ’60s, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and The Tropic of Cancer. The Evergreen Review. Victorian “erotica.” The Autobiography of Malcolm X. A bombing, a sit-in, and a near-fistfight with Norman Mailer. The common thread between these disparate elements, a number of which reshaped modern culture, was Barney Rosset.

Rosset was the antidote to the trope of the “gentleman publisher” personified by other pioneering figures of the industry such as Alfred A. Knopf, Bennett Cerf and James Laughlin. If Barney saw a crowd heading one way—he looked the other. If he knew something was forbidden, he regarded it as a plus. Unsurprisingly, financial ruin, along with the highs and lows of critical reception, marked his career. But his unswerving dedication to publishing what he wanted made him one of the most influential publishers ever.

Rosset began work on his autobiography a decade before his death in 2012, and several publishers and a number of editors worked with him on the project. Now, at last, in his own words, we have a portrait of the man who reshaped how we think about language, literature—and sex. Here are the stories behind the filming of Norman Mailer’s Maidstone and Samuel Beckett’s Film; the battles with the US government over Tropic of Cancer and much else; the search for Che’s diaries; his romance with the expressionist painter Joan Mitchell, and more.

At times appalling, more often inspiring, never boring or conventional: this is Barney Rosset, uncensored.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Literary Fiction

360 pages, Paperback

Published October 13, 2016

About the author

Barney Rosset was born in 1922 in Chicago to a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother. He was briefly married to the Abstract Expressionist American painter Joan Mitchell. He bought Grove Press in 1951, and sold it to the Getty family in 1985. He died in 2012.

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent enough memoir by one of the great publishers in English. Where would I be without Grove Press? I do have a thing about books on publishing. There is not one book that I can walk by that is not about publishing or being a publisher. I think I read them all. Although Barney Rosset is my favorite among the publishers, this is only ( very) good in parts. The chapter on Samuel Beckett is great, and his relationship with Olympia's equally great publisher, Maurice Girodias, is also fascinating. What slows the book down are the chapters regarding his various battles against censorship - which mind you, were important battles - yet, legal arguments are legal arguments and not great literature. Rosset writes beautifully, yet this book is really the work of someone who edited the manuscript. Russet never finished the memoir, and it seemed when he was alive, he couldn't finish the book. Or he didn't want to finish it. Nevertheless, I'm happy that the memoir exists. It is an important voice in 'publishing' history - and although not a great work of art, it is still of great importance.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its occasionally wooden tone, repetitions, missing information about writers and wives, and gaps in years, what we have in this assembly of a finished text by Rosset added to (fleshed out), with material he discarded, by multiple freelance editors and other publishers, as a note at the back says, is an interesting history of a fight again censorship. This is by no means a thorough biography, nor an intellectual one, but a sketch along definite lines: Rosset as an iconoclast and a common face at court, a friend of Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Ōe Kenzaburō, and others. Don't purchase this for the style, but for the pugnaciousness; for the history of Grove (to the point when Rosset is forced out), not for a literary history of 1950-2000. Along those lines, this book works.

[Robert Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was quite entertained by this book, but I wish it had been better constructed. Rosset died in 2012, and this book is constructed from an unfinished autobiography. In the early chapters, it feels like a standard biography--here's what happened, here's who I knew and who I was in love with, etc. But once he starts Grove Press, each chapter is about a specific Grove author or incident (particularly his censorship battles over Lady Chatterley's Lover and Tropic of Cancer). We read quite a lot about his first marriage to the great painter Joan Mitchell, but his subsequent wives and lovers are mentioned mostly in passing, as are his children.

It was also hard to figure out when different events happened. Thankfully there is a timeline appendix.

But these are cavils because Rosset is an incredibly entertaining book. If one is interested in American publishing, world literature, American cultural history (especially of the 50s and 60s), there is much here of interest.

[Samantha Gunning]

I won this book via Goodreads First Reads Giveaway. I received a paperback copy.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosset is a good, clear writer and this book makes a great umbrella over the astonishing publishing history of Grove Press in an era when books were still a vital part of intellectual discourse. Rosset's memoir is largely focused on his fight to get works like Tropic of Cancer and Naked Lunch published during a time when America wore a chastity belt and a tightly buttoned straitjacket. Rosset was also a figure of some controversy and I'm betting that many of the stories he tells here would be quite different told by someone on the other side of a tug-of-war over a particular book or an author. There is a biography of him -- Barney: Grove Press and Barney Rosset, America's Maverick Publisher and His Battle against Censorship, by Michael Rosenthal -- that is presumably more objective and that I may well read. Grove Press, probably more than any American publisher, defined the hothouse years of the latter 20th Century, importing authors and ideas freely from the tumultuous world overseas and giving voices to the foremost dissidents in the USA. Absolutely worth reading for anyone interested in 50s and 60s and the traces they left in the vanishing world of literature.

[Blythe Musteric · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m a huge fan of Grove Press (and most of the authors and artists mentioned in the book), so this was an essential and wonderful read for me. At times I felt like I was at a dinner party listening to amazing stories about people I would unfortunately never meet. (Rosset was married to Joan Mitchell and lived in Motherwell’s former house! He was great friends with Samuel Beckett and Kenzaburo Oe, and he also told stories about Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Kerouac. The list goes on.) For me the book gets five stars, but if you’re not interested in these authors or how Rosset fought censorship in American publishing, it may not be as exciting for you.

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rating: 5* of five

#ReadingIsResistance to the sense of powerlessness to the bullying, harassing, overbearing tinpot tyrants of all history. My review of BarneyRosset's shining example of always resisting the coercions of power, the diktats of faceless bureaucrats, the dumbing down of the culture is more neede now than ever. He never stopped until he stopped forever. Resist.

[Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book

[Geoff Winston Leghorn Balme · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosset gives you the highlights of his young life and then right into the world of publishing and fighting the censors. And while many of the books he published are personal faves, and his cause is of course just, I'm always amazed that the question that most attacks my mind about obscenity never comes up. He does have a few good one liners like telling the jury that if their kids were to read a Henry Miller novel all the way through they should be proud, I'm still not understanding why people are so afraid of potentially arousing material? It seldom truly is. And DH Lawrence nor H Miller never wrote anything I didn't hear in more ferocious and crude terms from several bosses I've worked for throughout my life.
Anyway this read is entertaining and light, each of the chapters could easily have been expanded into a serious book/study on the topic. Especially the Che Guevara, and his troubles with internal strife in the company leading up to the possible worker union at Grove. That material that was almost too light!
In the end Grove press lost millions over all, but thanks to Rosset and others we never have to really think about the kind of censorship that was commonplace around the time of my birth.
Rosset also isn't too prideful to not include some sharp criticisms of his own behavior. I always like someone who can self deprecate.