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O
n February 27, as I was reading
the New York Times obituary of
Clive Cussler, a few words drewme up short: “His books reached the New
York Times’s bestseller lists more than
20 times.” I cast my eyes heavenward and
asked Clive to please forgive them. It was
actually more than 70 times. I know,
because I was his editor for about 50 of
them.
Nobody could write adventure novelsthe way Clive could—those heady mixtures
of history, technology, exotic locales, and
astonishing set pieces in which heroes
raced against the clock to defeat the plans
of men hungry for money, power, and
domination. The writing wasn’t fancy (his inscription to me
in the first book we did together, 1999’s Atlantis Found, was,
“With deep appreciation for making me literate. Nice try.”),
but it was enormously effective—swift, lean, propulsive, and
a blast to read, just the way his readers liked it.
Clive knew it, too. By the time he came to us at Putnam,he’d already had a few publishers and nearly a dozen best-
sellers, beginning with Raise the Titanic!, and we organized a
lunch in New York City for him to meet a few more members
of our team. (I’d already met him earlier, when my boss and
I flew out to Scottsdale, Ariz., to introduce ourselves.) I was
seated next to him, and he leaned over to tell me a story.
The last time he’d switched publishers, he said, it was toa major house with a justly famed editor. When Clive turned
in his first manuscript, however, it came back heavily
revised—pencil marks all over the pages. This did not please
Clive. He took the manuscript and, on the top of the first page,
he wrote one word: stet. Nothing more. And then he wrote
the same word on the top of every page in the entire manu-
script. And then he sent it all back. A couple of days later—as
he told it to me—he got a panicked call from the editor asking
him to come to the house’s New York office to talk. Clive
declined, stating that “it would be... inconvenient.” That book
was published the way he wrote it.
Now, I know that Clive could not possibly have had anyulterior agenda in telling me that story, but even so, in the
18 years we worked together, I was always very careful to
make sure that Clive’s books were published just the way he
wanted them.
WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 9An Editor Remembers Clive Cussler
He made sure that was the case with his co-
writers, too. Just before he came to Putnam,
Clive had experimented with writing a spin-
off series with a cowriter, and he liked it so
much that he went on to create three more
new series, all with cowriters. He kept a firm
hand on them all, though. He and the col-
laborators came up with the plots together,
then they sent him the manuscripts in thirds.
With each third, he gave them thoughts,
corrections, and suggestions, and whenever
the writers want astray, he hauled them back
in or just rewrote the pages himself. If it
happened too often, he’d thank the writer
for their time and find someone else. He knew
what his fans liked—and he was always right.
In 2009, four of those cowriters held a roast of Clive at
Thrillerfest, and they all got off some gently amusing digs
at him. I had the honor of being master of ceremonies and
told some stories of my own, not only about Clive but about
the writers themselves. (“Let’s be honest,” I said. “How roasty
is it going to be? The man sends them paychecks. You can
see them now, thinking, Do I want to say that line—or do I
want to eat today?”)
It all went over well, and when we were done, and Clive
had had a chance to get in some digs of his own, I had the
opportunity to say a few closing words. I decided to quote
something Clive himself said, from an interview he gave for
the book Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed.
“I’ve always considered myself an entertainer rather than
a writer,” he said. “Many writers try to cram their stories down
readers’ throats. Others try to get their stories across on
philosophy, or the environment or anarchy in the streets of
Copenhagen. I feel my job is to entertain the readers in such
a manner that when they reach the end, they feel they got
their money’s worth. No message, no inspirational passages,
no political ideology, just old-fashioned enjoyment. If it ain’t
fun, it ain’t worth doing.”
So thank you, Clive, for so many books and so many
stories—and so many years of great fun. I treasure them all.
—Neil NyrenNeil Nyren joined Putnam in 1984, was made editor-in-chief
in 1986, and retired as executive v-p, associate publisher,
and editor-in-chief at the end of 2017.Clive CusslerPHOTOBY
LEANNA