publishing house decided it didn’t like the contents of a particular novel I’d been given a contract to write for them and subsequently refused to publish it on the grounds of “taste”—they were offended by it. This is a story I’ll return to later, but it was a scary moment for the arts—if one that has come to seem normal: in effect, a corporation was deciding what should or shouldn’t be permitted, what should or shouldn’t be read, what you could say and what you weren’t allowed to say. The difference between then (1990) and now is that there were loud arguments and protests about this on both
...more
