Tell Me Something, Tell Me Anything, Even If It's a Lie

May 1, 2024

Writer, editor, literary agent, and now publisher of Heyday Books, Wasserman writes a memoir in essays that reflects his literary life. These essays, previously published between 1979 and 2023, offer cultural critiques and history as well as recounting Wasserman's interactions with icons such as Susan Sontag and Orson Welles. Prepub Alert.

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September 15, 2024
The road from there to here has had many strange twists and turns, according to an acclaimed social critic. A memoir of a long life inevitably has a tone of nostalgia, a sense of pining for the good old days. There is much of this in Wasserman's collection of essays, the first of which was published in 1979. But there are also insights about the evolution of American society and how we reached the point where we now stand. Wasserman spent much of his career as an editor in the world of newspapers and books, although he also published his own thoughts in a wide variety of magazines. Some of his essays have stood the test of time, but others, such as his laudatory pieces on the Black Panther Party and the Cuban revolution, now seem like messages from an alternate universe. In other cases, he heaps praise on writers who have faded into obscurity. His profiles of Susan Sontag and Christopher Hitchens, however, are affectionate and revealing. He believes that the internet upset the cultural ecology of America, decimating the publishing industry and reducing the opportunities for serious reviews of serious books. He has harsh words for Jeff Bezos and Amazon and for the newspaper proprietors who ignored their social responsibilities to chase profits. Through it all, Wasserman's love of reasoned debate and good writing shines through, and he often displays an impish wit. Some readers, especially those of a certain age, will enjoy this book and admire Wasserman's style. Younger readers might simply wonder what he is talking about. In any case, the book is a remarkable record of a well-lived life. Written with care, passion, a keen eye for fakery, and a willingness to puncture it.

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October 21, 2024
In this boisterous debut essay collection, Wasserman, the publisher of Heyday Books, discusses his literary friendships, lefty politics, and opinions on publishing’s technological shifts. The selections chronicle Wasserman’s “precocious adolescence” in 1960s Berkeley, where as a high school student he learned radical politics from informal seminars conducted by left-wing activist Tom Hayden; his turn in the 1970s as editor of the Los Angeles Times opinion page, for which he coaxed an elusive Orson Welles to write an artful obituary for French director Jean Renoir; and his stint as editorial director for Times Books in the 1990s, where he successfully fought to publish Sister Souljah’s No Disrespect over the objections of his boss. Wasserman comes off as the quintessential book world insider, reflecting on his friendships with Susan Sontag (“something of an Auntie Mame figure for me”) and Christopher Hitchens, whose rightward turn in the early aughts Wasserman laments in an elegiac remembrance. Elsewhere, Wasserman dishes on hobnobbing with Barbra Streisand, Jacqueline Onassis, and Gore Vidal, and ruminates on his formative visits to Cuba, the promise and pitfalls of the Black Panther Party, and the prematurely pronounced death of the print book amid the ascendant e-book market of the aughts. Erudite yet chatty, this gossipy grab bag of reminiscences will be catnip for book lovers.