By DENNIS JOHNSON [MobyLives/Melville House] – In his later years, [Barney] Rosset’s East Village walk-up was a meeting place for lots of indie publishers, including the publishers of Melville House. He would hold court in a genial way — he was happy to tell war stories, but often enough he wanted to talk about your business with you. He wanted to talk numbers, percentages, how the distribution worked. It was a lesson — and often enough he wanted a lesson in return, as he sat on his sofa with an ever-present rum and coke.
It was like he never quit publishing. Or, more accurately, like he couldn’t wait to get back into it. In fact, his last words to me were, “So when are we gonna do some business together?”
Continued at MobyLives | More Chronicle & Notices.
