Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature

Shortlisted, 2024 SHARP Book History Book Prize, Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing

In the late 1950s, Random House editor Jason Epstein would talk jazz with Ralph Ellison or chat with Andy Warhol while pouring drinks in his office. By the 1970s, editors were poring over profit-and-loss statements. The electronics company RCA bought Random House in 1965, and then other large corporations purchased other formerly independent publishers. As multinational conglomerat...