Sara Franklin’s first-rate biography is a celebration of the “audacious life” of editor Judith Jones, whose career spanned the 1960s and into the millennium. With little more than instinct, pluck, and will, Jones began her career at Doubleday at age 17 and rose to senior editor and V.P. At Knopf in Paris. After being involved with noted authors like John Updike, Sylvia Plath, John Hersey, and Langston Hughes, and important manuscripts including The Diary of Anne Frank, she gained her most remarkable success by her association first with cookery guru Julia Child and later with James Beard and Jacques Papin, to become a true “culinary luminary.” This is an exceptional book, where even the end-notes make entertaining reading.
The Editor by Sara B. Franklin, (List Price: $29.99, Atria Books, 9781982134341, May 2024)
Reviewed by Michael Yetter, Joseph-Beth Booksellers Lexington in Lexington, Kentucky