Jonathan Galassi Remembers His Friend, the Great Robert Gottlieb ‹ Literary Hub

Bob had made his mark at Simon & Schuster editing pathbreaking books like Rona Jaffe's The Best of Everything, The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford, and, most famously, Joseph Heller's absurdist masterpiece Catch-22. Its original title had been Catch-18 but, learning that Leon Uris's Mila 18 was about to come out, Gottlieb suggested "Catch-22" because, as he rightly said, it was funnier. At Knopf he made equally adventurous choices, and excelled in the ways books were presented and marketed. He'd learned at S&S that publishing was in large part merchandising and relished every aspect of the process. He was the king of maximalist flap copy and the doyen of book advertising; Knopf's stark declarative ads (back when there still were newspaper ads) were the envy of the industry. The sales and marketing departments adored him because his predictions were so often right.