Books: Publishing Rises in the West

"In New York," grumbled a California editor last year, "they are convinced that nothing can happen except in the area of Manhattan bounded by the lounge of the Algonquin and the dining room of the Four Seasons." Then came Evan Connell's Son of the Morning Star, a brilliant account of General George Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn. It climbed the best-seller list and remained there for six months. Not for the first time, the industry was forced to admit that some of the nation's better publishing houses are located a world away from New York.

The most distinguished is North Point Press, whose volumes are models of polish and elegance: many of its paperbacks have dust jackets. The house was founded seven years ago by Real Estate Millionaire William Turnbull, 59, and Bookstore Owner and former Salesman Jack Shoemaker, 39. Turnbull, whose bulk and authority give him the aura of an editorial-cartoon plutocrat, chose the name because "if you know which way north is you can't get lost." The firm moved into a converted church and rectory in Berkeley in January 1980. The quarters were chosen, says the founder, "because we knew we would have to pray a lot."

For more than four years North Point survived on little more than faith. Its catalog offered some 30 titles a year by such respected but noncommercial authors as Essayist Guy Davenport, Poet Donald Hall and Novelist Gilbert Sorrentino. The company debt increased to $500,000. Still, the house made a virtue of its liability. For one thing, it never insisted on exclusivity. M.F.K. Fisher, the cooking authority and memoirist, was able to publish her new works with Knopf as long as North Point controlled the reprint rights. That way, Turnbull decided, Fisher had "both a husband and a lover." Writers and agents were assured that "our small size permits very personal attention. We take our authors' calls collect. An ear is always there to listen."

One of the talkers was Evan Connell, whose earlier hits, Mrs. Bridge (Viking; 1959) and Mr. Bridge (Knopf; 1969), had been published by Manhattan-based companies. He found North Point Press "invariably courteous," and when they offered him attractive royalties and a substantial advance, he signed on. Every aspect of production was negotiated, a sharp variance from the dictatorial New York style. "Evan didn't want photographs in the book," Turnbull remembers. "We felt they might make it more salable to history buffs. Evan won." But the author conceded another point: he provided a detailed index.

North Point's original projection of first-year sales was 15,000. There are now more than 150,000 hard-cover copies in print. "It was a pleasure to be wrong," Turnbull admits. "The world now knows that we have maturity and competence." Adds Shoemaker: "Up till now we had yet to prove that we could sustain an effort and back up a best seller. Son of the Morning Star has shown that with a staff of only ten we can keep up with trade demand and follow through with a first-rate promotional effort."