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Our editors are of course Albert Erskine, who's superb--he's the man that Faulkner said was the best editor in the country; Jason Epstein, who is a great individualist; Joe Fox, who is a great personality; Bob Loomis--a prize-- and the best one of all for the purposes of great corporate handling of manuscripts is Jim Silberman, who is now being made editor-in-chief, because he's the one willing to do all of the dirty work of seeing what happens to all of these manuscripts. Erskine, by virtue of seniority, should have had it, but at the mention of the job, he screamed “No!” He edits O'Hara and Michener and Robert Penn Warren and special books, and he does it the way he wants.

What does an editor...

What you call the discipline of respect does not exist at Random House. I hate being called by my last name. Even the doorman calls me by my first name. It's always been that spirit at Random House. I think that's what has made it such a happy group.

There is a real, sincere rapport.

Everybody here is on his own. When these rules come through--RCA being a huge corporation, we get all of the rules that are sent around to the other divisions--they are greeted with hoots of dismay.