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Maxine Groffsky, The Art of Editing No. 3

Interviewed by Jeff Seroy

ISSUE 2 2 2 , FALL 2017

At work on the rue de Tournon, with an assistant, 1966.

For the first two decades of its existence (1953–73), The Paris
Review was a trans­atlantic ­operation. It was printed in Europe. It was ­-
distributed mainly in America. And it was edited in both ­places, by
George Plimpton—who moved back to New York in 1956—and by a
series of Paris editors, who also oversaw the physical production of the
magazine. These Paris editors were a distinguished group: over the
years they ­included Robert Silvers, Nelson Aldrich, and Frederick
Seidel, among ­others. But the person who held the job longest, and left

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the biggest stamp on the Review, was Maxine Groffsky, who worked in
the rue de Tournon office from 1965 until it closed in January 1974.
Although Groffsky went on to become a well-known literary agent,
until now she has never ­spoken in depth about her time at the Review.
When the editors and I proposed this interview, she was skeptical.
Once she agreed, however, she prepared herself, rereading her
correspondence in the Paris Review archive at the Morgan Library and
visiting the office to pore over old issues. I spoke with her twice, in
August and September of last year, at the dining table of the sunny, art-
filled apartment high above Washington Square she shares with her
husband, Win Knowlton.
In person, Groffsky was vivacious and warm and, as regards this
text, exacting. The transcripts of our meetings went through several
months of revision in her hands. They also grew by many pages, as
Groffsky patiently wrote and rewrote in response to follow-up
questions and as new memories surfaced about this relatively unknown
—but very fertile—period in the Review’s history.

INTERVIEWER
First, how did you come to be Paris editor of The Paris Review?

GROFFSKY
Through the downtown art world and Random House publishers—but
it’s a long story.

INTERVIEWER
That’s why we’re here.

GROFFSKY
Swell. Just before graduating from Barnard College in 1958, I had a
blind date who took me to a party in a loft. It was Elaine de Kooning’s
studio and the party was for James Schuyler and the publication of his
novel Alfred and Guinevere. I met a painter there who told me about a
jazz club, the Five Spot, that was opening a place in the Hamptons just
for the summer. I didn’t know anything about the Hamptons or jazz,
and I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, but I knew that I
didn’t want to work in the city that summer. So I went downtown to a
joint on the Bowery to see Joe Termini, co-owner of the Five Spot,
asked to be one of the waitresses for the season in the country, and was
hired.
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The place in the Hamptons was in a white clapboard house on the

Montauk Highway in Water Mill. Frank O’Hara and Bill de Kooning
were at the opening-night party, along with the poets and artists who
had convinced Termini to try such a drastic change of locale. The
Hamptons weren’t ready for the Five Spot—the old-money, country-
club set wasn’t interested in jazz, and summer-rental swingers hadn’t
yet appeared. Even the painters couldn’t drink enough to make the
place profitable, but it stayed open until Labor Day. When the season
was over, I returned to the city with a boyfriend, Larry Rivers, and a
new life south of Fourteenth Street.
I took secretarial jobs during the day and went to New York
University at night and by the end of the semester knew that graduate
school and academe were not for me. Whenever I was midtown, I
stopped in to visit Joan Geismar, a friend from Barnard who worked at
Random House in the old Villard Mansion on Madison Avenue—it’s
part of the Palace Hotel now. Joan was the lowest person on the
editorial totem pole, but she had her own ­office—built expressly for
her job—in a corner of the impressive ­marble ­foyer. She logged in,
read, and sent back the unsolicited manuscripts. Thousands a year.
Joan was leaving Random House, and I thought it would be a good
place to work. She was to pick her successor, so I had a perfunctory
interview with her boss, Albert Erskine. “Can you type?” “So-so.” “Can
you take shorthand?” “No.” “Welcome to Random House.”
Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, the young cofounders of the firm
in 1925, were still at the helm and set the convivial atmosphere.
Bennett was a celebrity—a regular panelist on the popular TV
show What’s My Line? Donald was quieter, a lovely gent who brought
in baskets of tomatoes from his garden and left them on the reception
desk for all comers. Albert, editor in chief and the most handsome,
distinguished man in publishing, was William Faulkner’s editor.

INTERVIEWER
Were there any women editors?

GROFFSKY
At that time, young women were hired as secretaries or copy editors
but were not promoted to editor. Only one woman was a full-fledged
editor—Lee Wright, two generations older and a tough cookie. She was
in charge of crime fiction. Lee used the executive bathroom next to my
office while the copy editors went down to the Ladies in the basement.
One day, Lee was passing by and I asked if I could use the executive

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bathroom. She replied, “I don’t see why the fuck not!” And so we did,
all of us.

INTERVIEWER
Did you want to be an editor yourself ?

GROFFSKY
I wasn’t particularly ambitious or thinking about a career. When I left
work at five and headed to my studio apartment—not much bigger
than my ­office—it was into another world. There were painters and
openings and parties in lofts with live jazz, and readings by the New
York School and Beat poets—and Merce Cunningham, the Living
Theatre, and John Cage concerts. One night I appeared onstage at the
Village Gate in an evening of avant-garde Japanese music and poetry.
The featured event was “Of a Grapefruit in the World of Park,” a poem
written, narrated, and staged by Yoko Ono. I was asked by the
composer of “Sonans Objectivis” to wear a bathing suit while I
performed his piece. The New York Times reviewer loved the music
but found me “an incongruous visual note.” Nonetheless, the next day
there was a star pasted on my office door.

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