📱 eBook en inglés GRATEFULLY & AFFECTIONATELY

Between 1958 and 1976, the Irish American writer Mary Lavin had sixteen stories published in The New Yorker, after J. D. Salinger introduced her to the magazine. It was a prolific time for Lavin, helped in no small part by her close working relationship with her chief editor there, Rachel MacKenzie. They wrote nearly four-hundred letters to each other, the topics of which ranged from story edits to holiday plans, windfalls and legal troubles, mutual literary friends and their love of gardening, promotions and health emergencies. Within a year of working together, they were ending their letters with love, gratefully and affectionately. Lavin was soon offered the magazines highly coveted first-reading agreement.

Gráinne Hurleys impressive debut, Gratefully & Affectionately: Mary Lavin & The New Yorker, draws extensively from Lavin and MacKenzies letters as well as other material related to the revered magazine. It explores the collaborative relationship between this writer and her editor, Lavins own writing process, the inner workings and editing procedures of The New Yorker and the process of publishing a story from manuscript to print during its heyday. The book also reveals Lavins professional dealings with agents and publishers and her friendships with prominent literary figures including Eudora Welty, Frank OConnor, William Maxwell and John McGahern.

Gratefully & Affectionately offers fascinating insight into the lives and careers of two mid-20th-century women, working on either side of the Atlantic and inhabiting the small but hallowed world of literary publishing. It reveals how their fortunate union and combined love for the written word produced some of Lavins finest work.