Starling “Star” Lawrence, the former editor-in-chief of W. W. Norton who edited scores of bestselling titles over his 55-year career, died on August 21 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital after a brief illness. He was 82.
Lawrence was named executive editor of the Norton trade department in 1989, and was promoted to editor-in-chief in 1993. He was named vice chairman in 2000. He retained the roles until 2011 when John Glusman took the reins, followed by current editor-in-chief Dan Gerstle. He remained an editor-at-large at Norton until his death.
“It is impossible to overstate the effect Star Lawrence has had on Norton,” said Julia Reidhead, said Norton chairman and president in a statement.
Over his tenure, Lawrence demonstrated a sharp sense for future bestsellers, helping him identify cast-aside manuscripts and slush-pile submissions that would go on to sell millions of copies. Among these were Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, which Lawrence acquired after reading an Outside magazine article by Junger, and a 21-book nautical adventure series by Patrick O’Brian that included Master and Commander (1990), which would later inspire the Oscar-winning blockbuster by the same name.
“It is remarkable in hindsight that for two of the most important books I ever acquired, Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm and Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker, there were no other offers on the table,” Lawrence once noted.
Lewis’s book on the history of Wall Street proved especially fortuitous, inaugurating a 17-book-long editorial relationship with Lewis and a successful nonfiction career for Lewis, which continues to this day. In a statement, Lewis, who was a young writer when he met Lawrence in 1987, spoke to the strength of their editorial relationship as he wrote such iconic works as The Big Short (2010) and Moneyball (2003): “When I sit down to write, the only voice I hear in my head is Star’s,” he said.
When Lawrence started at Norton in 1969, a large portion of his job involved sifting through the slush pile—a task he has credited as a formative editorial experience. “The odds on finding something publishable there were notoriously low, almost infinitesimal, but the work taught me an important lesson about patience and paying attention to the job, no matter what it is,” Lawrence once said. As he panned for gold among the submissions, he trained “a voice that has endless patience for what does interest him,” as Lewis put it.
“Unlike traditional Norton editors, who tended to hit the book equivalent of singles, Star would swing for the fences and aim at home runs,” said Don Lamm, former chairman and president of Norton. In addition to Lewis, Lawrence gave an early boost to an array of now-recognizable names, including thriller author James Grady, The English Patient author Michael Ondaatje, and The History of Love author Nicole Krauss.
“As an editor, Star stood alone,” Brendan Curry, director of the Norton trade group, said, adding, “He was the rarest combination of exacting taste and enormous generosity, and I will miss him.”
Lawrence was also an author, whose books included the 1996 story collection Legacies and novel Montenegro, both published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux—and both starred by PW.
This article has been updated with further information and for clarity.
