Middlemen
Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
A revealing account of how agents have shaped book publishing and the literary canon from the 1950s to today
Middlemen rewrites literary history from the perspective of one of its most important but least visible figures: the literary agent. Chronicling the story of agents in the United States from the 1950s to today, Laura McGrath uncovers their critical role in the making of American literature. From the famed three-martini lunch to the Frankfurt Book Fair, Middlemen takes readers behind the scenes to show how agents influence what we read. Along the way, it explains why many debut novelists never publish another book, why agents champion short story collections even though they sell poorly, how agents advocate for writers of color in a system that values whiteness, and why there are so many New York novels.
Weaving together original archival research, data analysis, and interviews with scores of agents and other publishing professionals, Middlemen demonstrates that agents—eighty percent of whom are in fact women—are much more than “middlemen.” As intermediaries between author and publisher, agents act as advocates, matchmakers, negotiators, and tastemakers, and they must balance artistic values with the commercial imperatives of publishing conglomerates. The book describes the decisive role agents have played in celebrated novels—from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road to Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist—but also in the creation of entire literary categories like the debut novel, the story collection, postmodernism, multiethnic fiction, and world literature.
Featuring profiles of agents past and present such as Sterling Lord, Lynn Nesbit, Candida Donadio, Marie Brown, and Andrew Wylie, along with perspectives from agents at all stages of their careers, Middlemen is an entertaining and eye-opening account of how literary fiction—and the literary canon—is made.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McGrath, an English professor at Temple University, debuts with an enlightening study of how agents have shaped the American literary landscape. Through archival research and original interviews, McGrath reveals how literary agents have served as behind-the-scenes tastemakers, deciding which authors to represent and how an author's work is presented to publishers. Anecdotes from well-known agents like Sterling Lord, Lynn Nesbit, and Candida Donadio demonstrate how agents turned the debut novel into a major publishing event, helped the short story collection persist despite poor sales, and fostered relationships with prominent editors over three-martini lunches. McGrath also calls attention to surveys showing that, as in other publishing professions, most literary agents are white, and they tend to represent authors who look like themselves ("One answer to the perennial question ‘Why is contemporary literature so white?' is because agents are"). She highlights the work of agents of color like Marie Brown, who shepherded Black writers through the industry between the 1960s and 2024. The focus is almost exclusively on literary fiction, leaving readers to wonder about the machinations behind more commercial books. Nevertheless, McGrath's research is extremely thorough and presented in entertaining prose. Anyone curious about how their favorite books came to be will appreciate this peek behind the curtain.
