{"id":2228,"date":"2014-06-28T11:32:45","date_gmt":"2014-06-28T16:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/?p=2228"},"modified":"2014-08-20T09:34:27","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T14:34:27","slug":"on-the-new-yorkers-manuscript-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/2014\/06\/28\/on-the-new-yorkers-manuscript-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"On the New Yorker’s manuscript bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the letters section of the London Review of Books<\/em>, Jeremy Bernstein responds to\u00a0a Christian Lorentzen article that mentions Updike and the New Yorker<\/em>‘s “bank” for manuscripts that were waiting for the right space or time to be published in the magazine:<\/p>\n

In the Bank<\/strong>
\nChristian Lorentzen mentions that John Updike \u2018took the precaution of having the New Yorker hold his stories for months and years if the episodes he was treating were still too raw\u2019 (LRB, 5 June). Like all magazines the New Yorker had a \u2018bank\u2019 in which William Shawn deposited articles of all kinds until he could or could not find a spot in the magazine. It drove the writers crazy. We were consoled by a story about Updike. He joined the magazine in 1955 and began writing \u2018Talk of the Town\u2019. An early piece was called \u2018Time on Fifth Avenue\u2019 in which he looks for a clock. It was probably written around 1957. It was put in the bank and not published until 1963.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Bernstein
\nNew York<\/p>\n

Christian Lorentzen writes:<\/strong> In his biography Adam Begley discusses the New Yorker<\/em>\u2019s bank, but also mentions that there was a \u2018shadow bank\u2019 for stories of Updike\u2019s that veered too close to recent personal events. At the LRB, we have a \u2018box\u2019. I\u2019m not aware of a \u2018shadow box\u2019.<\/p>\n

Here’s the full Letters section for July 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: \u00a0Another LRB letter writer offers a correction:<\/p>\n

In the Bank<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeremy Bernstein refers to articles by John Updike and others being put \u2018in\u2019 a bank by theNew Yorker editor William Shawn until a spot could be found for their publication (Letters, 3 July). In My Mistake, a memoir of his time at the New Yorker, Dan Menaker refers instead to such articles being \u2018on\u2019 the bank. At first he thinks it\u2019s a riverine metaphor: articles waiting to be pushed into the stream that will take them to publication. He later realises that the \u2018bank\u2019 referred to a compositor\u2019s cabinet with a sloping top on which galleys were rested.<\/p>\n

Anthony O\u2019Donnell<\/strong>
\nNorthcote, Victoria, Australia<\/p>\n

Here’s the link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the letters section of the London Review of Books, Jeremy Bernstein responds to\u00a0a Christian Lorentzen article that mentions Updike and the New Yorker‘s “bank” for manuscripts that were waiting for the right space or time to be published in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person-singular"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2228"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2401,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions\/2401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/johnupdikesociety\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}