Ten Stories From Wild Publishing-Office Holiday Parties of Yore

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It’s been a depressing party scene this year at most publishing houses. Post-pandemic, post-widespread consolidation of imprints that used to have their own team-spirit identity, the vibes just aren’t festive. We won’t linger on the details, but someone at Knopf recently told me about a holiday “luncheon” that involved pizzas being delivered to a conference room.

Twenty years ago, that function would have involved a caviar station and a formal dress code, and even a plus-one if it had been an especially good year at the house. Back in the day, by which I mean the ’80s and ’90s and even the early aughts, the year-end celebrations that publishing houses threw were somewhat legendary. I spoke to some experienced old party hands — as well as some people who, like me, are just old enough to remember the tailwinds of the really good times — about what was different about parties back then. Outfits! Hams! Indoor smoking! Interns sitting in the editor-in-chief’s chair pretending to fire people! Here are some of their best stories.

Everything used to be fancy and decadent

“The ’80s and ’90s were the age of glorious publishing excess. There was money to spend, and everybody was in a festive mood. Every December, Bret Easton Ellis had his holiday party at the American Felt Building. There was always an amalgam of high-gloss talent in the room. Actors, artists, musicians, editors, writers. Enough that no one person ever commanded the attention of guests. Plus, it was always a major fucking squeeze. You either had someone’s balls in your ass or tits in your chest. And it was hard to find or get to people. I mean, you did one loop, and it took an hour (and his apartment wasn’t that big. It was, like, one room.). One night, there was a moment when things went a little quiet. People were parting to make room for a guest. The Starr report had been published not too long before, as had the Herb Ritts Vanity Fair photo spread. People were surprised to see Monica Lewinsky there. I know I was. And, I gotta say, she looked great.” — a longtime publicist

“The Literary Guild — a book-of-the-month subscription club — put on the most extravagant Christmas party, and it was famous for the shrimp. They were the best shrimp that anyone had ever had in their entire lives, and there were just acres of them. There was a carvery, and there was Champagne flowing, and there was a full bar. I mean, it was unbelievable. And it wasn’t a company holiday party. It was a holiday party to the entire industry. Everybody was there, and they invited everybody.” — an editor-at-large

“People still ask me about the Grove party because it was sort of legendary for being fun. Authors would show up. Publishers from other companies would show up. Even when it was in our offices, it would be a couple hundred people. There would be lots of drinking, and lots of music and goofing around, and you would run into people you hadn’t seen all year. I remember one year that one of the assistants — after all the quote, unquote, ‘grown-ups’ had left — was sitting in president Morgan Entrekin’s chair, pretending to fire people.” — a VP

The Knopf party was always epic

“The timing was always the Thursday before everyone went away for the holiday. The understanding was that no one was going to come in the next day, and, in fact, they didn’t. It was actually sort of nice, and people got dressed up and I printed invitations and I put them in everyone’s mailbox, because everyone had a mailbox then. When we did the parties in-house, caterers came in and set up different stations: On one was a ham, on another was a turkey, then we had a dessert table, and we had three bars set up.

In 1996, there were a couple of offices at Knopf that got trashed, because Sonny Mehta said, ‘I smoke in my office, so I can’t tell you not to do it.’ So they would designate someone’s office and they would go smoke in there. The next morning, I had to have the place aired out and vacuumed and the carpet cleaned. I walked in there while they were doing it, and people were sitting on desks. It was one of those stupid little offices with just one window. And I think there were 16 people standing around that little office, all having a great time, and they just poured drinks.” — Nicholas Latimer, VP and senior director of publicity at Knopf, who accepted a buyout last October. He began planning its holiday parties in 1984.

There was sex and drugs

“There was a lot of flirting that went on, and sometimes I think people hooked up. That was just a thing back in the day. I don’t have specific memories of who and when, but I do have memories of people coming together and no one raising an eyebrow about it. And when I look back on some of the behavior at holiday parties from the ’80s and ’90s, if you were to transport that to the era we live in now, people would be in trouble with HR. That kind of behavior is rightly frowned upon as it should be today. In the old days, it was a charged environment. Sex was a thing. There was a vibe, there was an undercurrent of chemistry between colleagues.” — a longtime publicist

“I was a publicity assistant. Each floor had book rooms, basically mini-libraries where we kept copies of all of our books to be sent out to media. I ended up in the book room during the holiday party with my work crush. He pushed me up against the wall of books, in the back corner. We started making out, kind of like that epic scene in the movie Atonement with Keira Knightley in that epic green dress, but definitely only as hot in my mind. I was likely wearing a dress from H&M. We both started laughing while kissing because this make-out was literally both of our book-nerd fantasies. We could hear all the festivities happening throughout the halls and were kissing with my back against National Book Award winners. Cigarette smoke was wafting through the hallways and into the book room. I definitely had a better night than the girl escorted out in a wheelchair because she was so wasted!” — another publicist

“I remember there was a holiday party at William Morrow, circa 1983. And there was a guy there who ran the mail room, and he was running drugs out of the mail room in addition to packages of books. So at the holiday party, I somehow found myself in the mail room with him doing blow. It was late at night. He ran out. We decided to go up to an SRO hotel in Harlem to buy more coke. I was just some gangly white guy. And when I walked into the room, everybody kind of gave me a look, and some guy was sitting there with a gun on his lap. I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ And then all of a sudden, the mail-room guy left and I was on my own in this room, doing blow with these guys that I’ve never met. I had to go out to a cash machine and get some money to pay for it. I was so fucked up that I didn’t think I could get home. There was an art director who worked at William Morrow at the time, and somehow I wound up at her apartment, and she’s like, ‘You’re completely fucked up. You have to get out of here.’ I tried to get home to Long Island. I was on my way to Penn Station, and it was, I don’t know, two o’clock in the morning. The next train wasn’t until 3:30. I went to a bar. I sat down in a snowbank and I fell asleep in the snowbank. I had so much to drink, and even with the coke, I was just unconscious. The next morning, a William Morrow editor was walking to work and saw me in the snowbank. He said, ‘I won’t tell anyone.’ And then, of course, he broadcast it to the entire company.” — a longtime publicist

The morning after

“When we used to have the parties in the office, people would be asleep at their desk or under their desk the next morning.” — a publicist

“I took the train home, and I lived in the same neighborhood as this intern. I was trying to make sure she didn’t get lost, because I have gotten lost in New York when I’m drunk. She was so drunk that she tried to swipe her keys in the subway station.” — a VP

“My first Grove holiday party, I was so hung-over the next day that all I could do was sit in a chair and watch both Bill and Ted movies back-to-back.” — an executive editor