My literary lawyer Abe Friedman insisted, in 1965, that I make a clean break with American Literary Exchange by signing with the hottest agent in the book business, Scott Meredith. Scott landed a three-book contract with Pocket Books for my fourth novel, Poorboy at the Party. He told me, “The advance they're paying you is a record-breaker. Never before has a publisher paid such a big advance. You have a long and lucrative career ahead.”
        The editor-in-chief at Pocket Books was Herb Alexander. He turned out to be the advisor I'd been looking for. A big, barrel-chested Irishman, native of New York City, he had begun his career as a Bible salesman traveling through the Deep South. When I first met him I thought: This guy looks like a Mafia hitman, not an editor. I would soon realize how misleading that impression was. His mind was quick and brilliant and amazingly expansive, and he was the most successful editor in chief in the book business then. He had transformed Pocket Books into the top moneymaker in book publishing history. “Agatha Christie and Harold Robbins made us so rich,” he growled, “we got more money than God.”
        Other editors took credit for the success of their authors. Herb attributed his success to his authors.
        We had a series of liquor-lubricated lunches, “to map out the campaign,” as he put it. His plan was to promote Poorboy at the Party “to the top of the list and beyond.” Pocket Books, a paperback publisher, had its own newly-created hardback line, Trident. That meant we would not have to shop for a hardback deal. At the time, this was an innovation in book publishing. Only hardbacks were reviewed by the New York Times Book Section and other prestigious publications. Not only did Herb dominate the industry, such innovations as creating his own hardback line changed book publishing in ways that benefited both authors and the public.
        This fifth of my novels, Poorboy at the Party, is a metaphor and prognostication: the children of the American oligarchy destroy art treasures (society's treasures, really) in a volcanic eruption of repressed libidos; the lead character, a guy from the working class, relates the story of this party-gone-wild from his perspective. That Herb so deeply understood the symbolism of the story was a delight to me. I'd originally done it as a screen treatment for Sam Goldwyn, Jr. We'd parted when he wanted me to revise it so that his class, the children of the oligarchy, are portrayed as glamorous, stylish, chic, superior. He used the words elegant and aristocratic.

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