A Leap Into Books an Ex-Financier Finds His Real Love Is Publishing
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A-lead.levy 10/5/01 2:30 PM Page 90 ALUMNI A Leap into Books An ex-financier finds his real love is publishing. or 17 years Paul eclectic mix of paperback Dry ’66 commuted reprints—fiction and to the Philadelphia nonfiction—many with F Stock Exchange, new, scholarly introduc- where he was a success- tions. Among them are a ful, if not terribly high- 1567 translation of Ovid’s rolling, stock-options Metamorphoses; a surreal- trader. The whirlwind of istic tale called His Mon- activity pleased him, as key Wife; a psychiatrist’s did the autonomy, and the study of an Italian Jewish job helped pay his family’s leader during the Holo- bills. Yet by the early caust; a biography of two 1990s a certain dissatisfac- jazz pioneers; and The Tree tion had set in, which led of Life, a fictional journal Dry to make a purchase of a frontier minister. For that he promptly stashed the most part, these are away. But sometimes his books Dry read in their mind would turn to the first editions, enjoyed, weighty cardboard box in and brought back to life. the closet: “Do I dare do “I figured if I loved them,” it?” he wondered. Filled he explains, “there must with expensive stationery be other people out there imprinted with the name who would love them, Bedrock Books, the box too.” sat in the dark for about This fall, Dry and his five years. “It was a secret business partner, John shared by me, my wife, Corenswet ’77, branched and the guy who designed out to produce one com- it,” Dry says. “I was a pletely new work: My Busi- closet book publisher.” ness Is Circumference: Poets on Only in 1998, after tak- Influence and Mastery, edited ing a summer seminar in by the poet Stephen Berg, publishing at Stanford, founder of American Poetry did Dry decide to trade Review. Lazy-day beach in the heady world of reading? Perhaps not. But high finance for the cere- the books are accessible to bral enclave of a literary devoted readers, in whom press. “This was some- the partners have great thing I had just not dared faith. “We want to de- to do. Then I saw that Literary press owners Paul Dry (left) and John Corenswet offer velop a trust with readers, one could do it—chang- readers an eclectic mix of books. so they will say, ‘Gee, I re- ing careers and becoming ally liked that book, a publisher wasn’t beyond my abilities— So far, he has landed on his feet. The what’s coming next from Paul Dry Books?’” and that I really wanted to do it,” he says. company—renamed Paul Dry Books says Corenswet. “We can be a gatekeeper “That still doesn’t mean that the business (www.pauldrybooks.com)—has launched who will go out and do all the hard work to will work—but that it is worth taking 11 titles since the spring of 2000 and has find the really great books and then give that jump o≠ the cli≠.” two more due out this winter. It is an them to readers.” 90 November - December 2001 Photograph by Will Brown A-lead.levy 10/5/01 2:38 PM Page 91 Of his later-life career change, Dry says talking about language and ideas—so why loses his faith and moves to the Ohio he “was a good enough gambler not to shouldn’t I do this all the time?” frontier in 1811. Jottings, maps, drawings, lose money” in trading, but the risks Paul Dry Books reflects an older style of and stories of love, brutality, and relations wracked his nerves because it was not trade-book publishing: described as with neighboring Indians weave a com- work he loved. These days, the ubiquitous “decentralized, improvisational, person- pelling tale, in journal form, of frontier company reports and trading-floor al; best performed by small groups of life. “It asks the question, ‘How do we live screams of “Buy” and “Sell” have been re- like-minded people, devoted to their without faith?’” Dry says. placed by manuscripts and questions like craft...sensitive to the needs of writers The Parnas, which Dry first read in 1981, “Why do we read?” The prospect of losing and to the diverse interest of readers” by is a short, intensely moving book about a money still looms, but its threat is less- former Random House editor Jason Ep- tormented Jewish leader in Pisa (the par- ened by the joy of engaging with the work stein in Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, nas of the title) during the Nazi invasion. It itself, he says. “In doing something I love, and Future. Given that the top 10 trade- is a story of su≠ering and fear, the late I don’t think about the risk as much.” book publishers control 80 percent of psychiatrist Silvano Arieti wrote, but also Dry is a soft-spoken man whose social- United States book sales and rely on a a story of the discovery that “nobility and relations concentration in college under- stable of bestsellers for profits, Dry’s un- greatness are sometimes hidden within scored his still-buoyant interest in the hyped titles may o≠er readers a welcome mental illness.” It is one of three Paul Dry psyche, creativity, and human expres- intensity of thought and feeling not pre- books touching on the Holocaust, each in sion—which culminates in a passion for sent in Danielle Steel’s latest. “Reading in a di≠erent way. For Dry, who is Jewish, books with philosophical underpinnings. college was always a chore for me,” The Parnas reveals something of the human A slow reader, he never tires of turning Corenswet remembers, “I only started en- e≠ort to understand and accept others’ the words over in his own mind, or, more joying books when I didn’t have to have (and one’s own) strengths and weak- importantly, discussing books. One book them finished by the next morning. I nesses, and something of our own encoun- group he and Corenswet belonged to read guess we’re looking for readers, not un- ters with evil. A more obvious commercial Ulysses—out loud—over four and a half like myself, who are looking for books venture, Dry notes, was the 2001 reprint of years. Another group he and a friend they might have missed.” the revised Lincoln’s Quest for Union: A Psycho- founded in 1986 still meets. Members logical Portrait, by Charles B. Strozier ’66, gather at each others’ homes, where they The partners first met as neighbors Dry’s classmate and friend since grammar eat dessert, exchange news, and then (for in central Philadelphia. When Dry was school. Launched in connection with the the most part, he admits) settle down to starting his business it became clear, he airing of the PBS program Abraham and the book at hand. “It’s a wonderful mix,” says, that his friend, a lawyer, was not only Mary Lincoln: A House Divided, the book he says. “Do you read a book so you can helpful with contracts, but also “good o≠ers insights into Lincoln gleaned largely get together with your friends, or do you with money and an excellent editor with a from interviews conducted by Lincoln’s get together with your friends so you can great eye for book design.” One other full- longtime law partner, William Herndon. read a book? The answer is both. You get time sta≠ member and a group of free- (Dry’s own interest in Lincoln is long- the pleasure of comradeship, and you get lance editors, copyeditors, and a book de- held; he wrote his senior thesis on Lincoln the joy of reading the writing, because the signer now round out the team. with Erik Erikson as his adviser.) sharing of something—of ideas and sto- Dry and Corenswet choose their titles The firm’s most recent title, My Business ries—that is important to you deepens carefully, cognizant of their role as “rec- Is Circumference, presents 28 contemporary both experiences. It’s not the reading and ommenders of books to our readers,” American poets who provide a “multifac- the writing so much as the conversation Corenswet says. “Every publisher imag- eted view of the creative process,” Cor- we have about it that changes us.” ines being handed ‘the book of the cen- enswet says. Each poet contributed a new The book group piqued Dry’s intellect tury,’” Dry adds. “But can you imagine poem, several works that influenced it, and sociability and “nourished a part of my reading Kafka for the very first time? and an essay on poetic mastery. life that was not touched in trading,” he What would you think? As an editor you It is this book that perhaps best reflects says. Also influential were his experiences, have to trust your reactions and talk to Dry’s central mission: the sharing with from 1995 to 2000, as a teacher of January- other people. You have to know the book others in a continuing dialogue of writ- session courses at Middlebury College may be bigger than you are.” ing, ideas, and the roots of the creative with his brother, Murray Dry, a political- The Tree of Life (in its first edition) was process. “We only get deeper by the con- science professor there. The readings the first title Dry’s book club read in versations we have together,” he asserts. ranged from works by Shakespeare and 1986—a full 12 years before he became a “I didn’t get into publishing just to read Bacon to Rousseau, Henry Adams, and publisher.