Toni at Random by Dana A Williams review – the editorial years of a literary great

The Guardian

2 days ago

While a great deal has been written about Toni Morrison's fiction, her work as a senior editor at Random House is less well known. Dana A Williams, professor of African American Literature at Howard University, sets out to fill this gap, offering an impeccably researched account of Morrison's stint at Random House between 1971 and 1983, against the backdrop of the Civil Rights and the Black Arts movements. Reflecting ideas generated by that convergence, Morrison's novels – described by the Nobel committee, when they awarded her the prize in literature in 1993, as giving life to an essential aspect of American reality – were driven by an unwavering belief in the possibility of African American empowerment through self-regard. Williams's interest lies in showing how Morrison's editorial career was informed by the same invigoratingly insular ethos. Whether writing or editing, her work was aimed at producing 'explorations of interior Black life with minimal interest in talking to or being consumed by an imagined white reader'.
Morrison saw early on how that kind of insularity could be wielded as both a weapon and a shield. Addressing the Second National Conference of Afro-American Writers at Howard in 1976, she urged the audience to recognise that 'the survival of Black publishing, which […] is a sort of way of saying the survival of Black writing, will depend on the same things that the survival of Black anything depends on, which is the energies of Black people – sheer energy, inventiveness and innovation, tenacity, the ability to hang on, and a contempt for those huge, monolithic institutions and agencies which do obstruct us'. These words could well have been repurposed as a mission statement for her editorial career, which, as Williams points out, consisted of '[making] a revolution, one book at a time'. Change was coming in America. Morrison's contribution would be to work towards change in the overwhelmingly white world of publishing: 'I thought it was important for people to be in the streets,' she said during an interview for the documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, released in 2019. 'But that couldn't last. You needed a record. It would be my job to publish the voices, the books, the ideas of African Americans. And that would last.'
Toni at Random traces the path that led from Morrison's Jim Crow childhood to her storied literary career, briefly documenting her early years, during which storytelling was an 'ever-present pastime', as well as her academic life (Howard, followed by graduate studies at Cornell), before moving on to chapter-by-chapter case studies of some of the publications she oversaw during her stint at Random House. At times Williams's book reads like a catalogue of those works, from The Black Book (a compendium of black life in America) to work by June Jordan, Lucille Clifton and Toni Cade Bambara, as well as autobiographies of Angela Davis, Huey Newton and Muhammad Ali, and Gayl Jones's Corregidora (which was reissued in 2019). Nevertheless, it is a fascinating catalogue, not least because it is full of thrilling behind-the-scenes insights into what it took to get them published.
Morrison was keenly aware that success depended on proving that books such as these could sell; demand would have to be so high that, as Williams writes, 'even the most recalcitrant salesperson would have no choice but to fall in line'. The first job was making sure the books were excellent. Williams provides a number of examples of Morrison's exacting standards, including the fact that, while working on a collection of Huey Newton's essays, she recommended deleting the weak ones and editing the rest, 'even those that had been previously published'. But Morrison was also required to navigate 'the irony of the need to be appealing to white people while also preserving enough distance from them to maintain Black privacy', keeping one eye on the bottom line even while the other was on black consciousness. On one memorable occasion, when the poet Barbara Chase-Riboud stonewalled her about doing publicity (loftily describing it as 'tap [dancing] for prizes and coverage'), Morrison fired off a flinty letter reminding her that Random House was 'a commercial house historically unenchanted with 500 slim volumes of profound poetry that languish in stock rooms'.
Morrison could be blunt when she had to be but, alongside this, Williams paints a picture of her as a fiercely protective editor, chasing blurbs and championing her projects with passion, tenacity and a moving sense of urgency, 'scared that the world would fall away before somebody put together a thing that got close to the way we really are'. In addition, Williams highlights her convivial and collaborative approach, which led to the development of close friendships with a few of her authors including, famously, Angela Davis, who lived with Morrison and her sons for a time while they worked on her autobiography. It is astonishing to consider that at the same time as doing all this Morrison was also busy raising two sons and writing her own novels, frequently leveraging her literary status in service of her editorial campaigns. Williams includes references to a 1978 interview in which Morrison hinted at how exhausting this was: 'I want to stop writing around the edges of the day … in the automobile and places like that.'
Which makes it even more astonishing to consider how little has changed since she fought this fight. According to Dan Sinykin, writing in Literary Hub in October 2023: 'In 1971, when Morrison became a trade editor, about 95% of the fiction published by the big commercial houses was by white authors. By 2018, that number only dropped to 89%.' In August 2024, Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth Harris pointed out in the New York Times that following the hiring of 'a small but influential group' of black female editors in 2020, many had 'lost their jobs or quit the business entirely … [leading] some … to question publishers' commitment to racial inclusion'.
In the UK the position is hardly any better. The fight is still necessary, and still exhausting. However, Williams's book is a timely reminder of the need for an inward-looking response, and of the joy to be discovered along the way. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is best when it is penetrated by Morrison's own voice, in the form of excerpts from her correspondence. Here, for example, is Toni attempting to persuade Bill Cosby (with his reputation as yet untarnished) to write an introduction for The Black Book: 'Let me just say … I want to publish books about us – black people – that will make some sense – to give joy, to pass on some grandeur to all those black children (born and unborn) who need to get to the horizon with something under their arms besides Dick and Jane and The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.' At the time she wrote those lines, I was one of those black children, and I am grateful that the books she published did exactly that. The same spirit of gratitude permeates Williams's scholarly, informative and highly readable book.
Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship by Dana A Williams is published by Amistad (£25). To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.