Toni Morrison kept her day job as an editor at Random House while writing Song of Solomon. T.S. Eliot began publishing the poems in Four Quartets when he was a director of the storied British firm of Faber & Faber. Diana Athill worked with Philip Roth and Margaret Atwood at another London powerhouse, Andre Deutsch, before Somewhere Towards the End brought her a new fame as an author.
Jenny Jackson’s first novel, Pineapple Street, is a surprising break with that stellar tradition. Jackson is an executive editor and vice president at Knopf who’s worked with Cormac McCarthy, Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan, and other stars.