I’ve known Jeannette more than 20 years. I think I met her when I sent my manuscript into Harcourt Brace. We never lost contact. Every so often we would call. I stopped off in Portsmouth a number of times to visit usually working on books. In recent years, I sent her poems that she edited. She and I were very, very close. She was a dear friend.
She edited three books of mine. The big book she edited was called Writers on the Left. That was about communism in the literary movement up until 1939 from the beginning. Then she edited The Unwritten War. It was about American writers in the civil war. I wrote a memoir of myself and she went over that manuscript the University of Michigan press.
She was a good editor, going over a manuscript and aspects that could be developed further or suggesting ideas that would help an episode.. make it more dramatic, make it more interesting and asking questions.
She was very good at asking questions, planning the book and detecting small flaws.
She was a real editor in short, rather than the perfunctory editing that happens these days which isn’t editing at all.
She was involved with her clients. It was never perfunctory. It was something she took seriously. If she wasn’t interested in it, she wouldn’t do it.
She was very plain spoken. She knew a great many people and edited very many important books.
She was very blunt, very direct, completely candid. That’s what I think I liked about her best. You always knew where you stood... it was always very clear.
She got into trouble sometimes… I remember on one occasion. I remember we were at a conference in New York, the American Historical Society session. One of her writers had published a book, maybe it was Kennedy… A well-known historian was there and was I think a little drunk. This historian came storming up and attacked her for publishing this book. We sat there together, speechless, stunned. She sat there as I did open-mouthed while this tirade went on. I’d known him for years and he didn’t address me. She was good-humored , and cool, a real professional. That was part of her business.
She was very good with people…, never deferential but always polite and direct. She was always self-confident… professional in the very best sense.
She was always encouraging too. She never really criticized me or made me lose confidence in what I was doing. She was always encouraging. She had an eye for detail… little details that you wouldn’t pick up.
She had a protective feeling about the people she worked with. Once she chose you, once she accepted you, there was a certain sense of responsibility on her part, not to get you good reviews, not like that.
She regarded her authors as a kind of family with certain privileges.
To be respected, to be given straight answers, not to be deluded by false assurances… simply to be respected as HER author.
Daniel Aaron
Department of English,
Harvard University
Barker Center
Cambridge, MA 02138
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