While I ended up liking this book very much, I struggled with some of the pedestrian writing in its early pages and didn’t like the title at all.  A “legend” and “shaped culture” in the title were good examples of the author’s extravagant claims for this woman who worked as an editor at Knopf for nearly six decades.

Jones was, in fact, a rather remarkable woman and well deserving of a biography.  She worked with some of the leading writers of the late 20th and first two decades of the 21st C—-the three page list of these authors at the back of the book included one of my favorites, John Updike as well as Anne Tyler, Peter Taylor, Muriel Spark, William Maxwell, Andre Gide, Shirley Hazzard, and John Hersey.  She also edited some great poets incuding Frank O’Hara, Wallace Stevens, John Crowe Ransom, W.H. Auden, and Sharon Olds.  She was especially important in bringing the work of Updike, Tyler, Plath, and Olds to publication.

That said, perhaps her greatest contribution was elevating the art of the cookbook to a high level.  Initially working with Julia Child to bring French cooking to America, she went on to publish many cookbooks and books about food, introducing American household cooks and palates to the cuisine of the Middle East, China, Japan, India, and others. She along with Craig Claiborne at the NYT and James Beard were largely responsible for elevating the culinary arts in America.  Her patient and persistent support of Child was responsible for Julia’s success on TV and in publishing her books.

The aspect of the book that I most enjoyed were the insights it provided into the role of the editor and the working relationship between editor and writer.  “Good Prose: The Art of Non-Fiction” by Tracy Kidder and his editor the late Richard Good was the first book that introduced me to this complex relationship.  Another book that contributed to that understanding was A. Scott Berg’s marvellous book, “Maxwell Perkins: Editor of Genius”  about the legendary editor at Scribner’s who brought Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe, and Rawlings to publication.  Jones had a similar impact, showing a rare gift for adapting her style and her input to the individual writer.  She could be gently critical or full on supportive as each writer’s needs required.

The other aspect of this book that I prized was the story of Jones herself.  Born in 1924, she grew up on NYC’s Upper East Side, attended Brearley, and went on to Bennington where she had a long and tumultuous relationship with the older poet, Ted Roethke.  After college, she spent time in Paris where she met her husband, the reporter and writer Dick Jones.  Starting at Knopf as an assistant/secretary to Blanche Knopf for $30/week, Jones gradually rose through the ranks until she was a Senior VP and senior editor under Knopf, Robert Gottlieb (who doesn’t come off very well), and finally Sonny Mehta.  Unable to have children of her own due to endometriosis, she and Dick raised the two children of her cousin’s ex-husband—a remarkable gift.  With a father and grandparents from Vermont, Jones and her husband found respite and refuge in the Green Mountain State where they eventually owned a home in rural Stannard in the Northeast Kingdom. She was a courageous, strong, bright, and creative woman, struggling with the limitations of a man’s world just as the feminist movement gathered steam.

Franklin, as most biographers, struggled with what level of detail to include, but through her personal relationship with Jones and her family, she has provided us with a readable and engaging story of a remarkable woman.  Legendary in publishing, and shaping culture in some small degree, Jones who died at 93 has received the writerly praise she deserved.