Memories of Bob Guccione, Vanessa Williams, Traci Lords — and Me

Through a looking glass with the underdogs

When you work for publishers, you work for characters, larger than life. They may be risk-taking businessmen, but they are extravagant eccentrics. Bohemians. People who’ve turned life into a banquet, as Auntie Mame would say.

I think of some of my mentors: the late Sonny Mehta at Knopf. Don Katz at Audible. Si Newhouse at Condé Naste. I had one British publisher who made me negotiate with his Vatican papal representative. A big-league romance publisher insisted I drape a six foot boa constrictor around my neck and arms. (“She’s really getting too big for one person to carry.”).

Another publisher who shall remain un-named— although perhaps too easy to guess— announced it was a condition of my employment that I accompany them to a Red Sox game and take Ayahuasca.

But one beat them all. Really beat them all. —The late, but not forgotten, Bob Guccione.