Joan Kahn

Joan Kahn (April 13, 1914 – October 12, 1994) was a New York City-based American author, anthologist, and editor, widely regarded as the preeminent mystery/suspense editor of her time. Described variously as the "doyenne of suspense," "the doyenne of mystery editors," Kahn first came to prominence during her extended reign (1946-1980) at Harper & Brothers (later Harper & Row), much of it spent creating and overseeing the longstanding "Harper Novel of Suspense" series. The Joan Kahn imprint, instituted during her Harper tenure, soon became a sought-after imprimatur for mystery connoisseurs. Some of Kahn's more celebrated signings include John Creasey, Patricia Highsmith, Julian Symons, Dick Francis, and Tony Hillerman. 'Ladies and Gentlemen' said the Ringmaster, and two novels, To Meet Miss Long (1943) and Open House (1946), before embarking on her editorial career.

Career Neither immediate nor by design, Kahn's career change was, in fact, incremental, circuitous, and, on Kahn's part, entirely unwitting. Her initial employment at Harper was as a manuscript reader, only later being recruited by Frederick Lewis Allen as an editor at Harper's Magazine, before finally being brought back by Harper & Brothers to help overhaul the publisher's antiquated mystery department. Even after these respective promotions, Kahn had no inkling that her current livelihood was soon to become her life's work. Both her training and her aspirations at that time were primarily in the visual arts; aside from being a published author, Kahn was both a painter and a sculptor, as well as a stage and costume designer.

As she would tell The New York Times in 1968, Kahn initially viewed the Harper job as merely a "temporary thing,"

As an editor, Kahn was both devoted to her authors and extremely demanding – by her own account, "a nasty editor." She would not buy a book until it was fully fit to print; to that end, she worked long hours collaborating with her prospective authors. Moreover, no amount of previously successful collaborations between Kahn and a given author guaranteed publication of that author's next novel.

Two of Kahn's key seventies signings, Tony Hillerman and Joseph Hansen, not only unleashed two hitherto frustrated novelists, but also introduced two groundbreaking American protagonists, Hillerman's Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Joseph Hansen's unapologetically gay insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter. Looking back in 1985, fifteen years after the fact, and again almost two decades later, Hansen recalls both the initial agonizing delay in publication and the ensuing mutual incredulity when Kahn finally came to the rescue: But before there were reviews, there had to be a published book. And that took some doing. It also took three years. Publishers were leery of my matter-of-fact, non-apologetic approach to a subject that the rule book said had to be treated sensationally or not at all. At last a brave lady named Joan Kahn took a chance on me. When Kahn, magisterial mystery editor at Harper & Row, accepted this novel for publication, she wrote my agent, "Where's this writer been hiding?" I had to laugh to keep from crying. Hiding was the last thing I wanted to do... I'd been writing for 46 years.

Hillerman had an analogous tale to tell (a three-year travail, complete with Kahn cast as the deus ex machina), recounted shortly after his death by Jack Adrian in The Independent: His first book, The Blessing Way (1970), took him three years to write and then three months to rewrite after Joan Kahn, the mystery editor at Harper's, sent him a detailed critique, telling him to "beef up" one of his secondary characters. "Ironically," Hillerman said, "that character was Joe Leaphorn. I'd originally had a white anthropologist as the protagonist. I owe my career to Joan Kahn."

The exact circumstances of Kahn's departure from Harper & Row in early 1980 remain unclear; contemporary press accounts offer no specifics. For her part, speaking with the Los Angeles Times in December of that year, Kahn suggests the move was her choice, a reluctant response to Harper's increasingly bottom-line orientation: I left Harper with my heart breaking, but it was getting bigger and bigger. Since the only thing I really give a damn about is the authors, and they weren't being taken care of, I thought I'd better go and find a place that would love them more. I think little places can afford to do that. In any event, after leaving Harper, Kahn worked briefly at Ticknor & Fields, and then E.P. Dutton, before landing, in early 1983, at St Martin's, where she would remain until her retirement six years later. Accompanying Kahn through her many relocations were a number of her more recent discoveries from Harper, including Jack S. Scott, Richard Bulliet, E. Richard Johnson, Herbert Resnicow, Jonathan Gash, and Jane Langton, as well two Ticknor signatories, H. Paul Jeffers and Patrick McGinley.

Towards the end of her life, Kahn received two special awards from the Mystery Writers of America – first, in 1985, the Ellery Queen Award for "outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry," and, on the occasion of her retirement in 1989, a special Edgar Award in recognition of Kahn's distinguished career. That same year, Kahn received a special Anthony Award from Bouchercon for Distinguished Contribution.

Personal life Kahn never married and had no children. After a brief illness, she died on October 12, 1994, in Manhattan. For his part, Mr. Francis insisted he had written the stories, but had, in each instance, received his wife's invaluable assistance both before and after the fact, in terms of research and editing, respectively. Mrs. Francis likewise took issue with Lord, though, curiously, her rebuttal addressed the basis for Lord's assertions ("Graham Lord is guessing and he has no hard facts") rather than the assertions themselves ("The amount of sharing we do is private"). At the time of his wife's death one year later, Francis did not depart significantly from his previous statements (stressing again that she was "a great researcher" who "helped" with his "English"), adding: I couldn't have written the books without her. She had a university degree and education, which I didn't have. She was in a way a co-author, but she wouldn't take credit. I don't really know why. She didn't really like publicity, and she was quite happy for me to have all the credit. A piece by Ann Carter, published in The Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel shortly after the Lord biography, while downplaying the importance - not to mention the possibility - of determining exactly who contributed what, does lend strong support to Kahn's contention that Mrs. Francis' contribution extended well beyond what had been publicly acknowledged (as do the contemporaneous comments of Francis family friend Brough Scott, broadcast on BBC Radio 5 Live, as well as fellow crime writer H.R.F. Keating's brief review of the Lord biography). Citing numerous passages which seem to reflect a typically 'feminine' viewpoint (such as attention to makeup, hairstyle, wardrobe and interior decor, as well as the presence of strong female characters, often in traditionally male-assigned roles), Carter recounts an earlier conversation with the author: When I asked about some of these factors in a 1984 interview, Francis said – not once, but several times – that they were to "fill up the book." That sounds like the kind of answer one might give when one doesn't know the answer. |group=lower-alpha acting as an advisor and manuscript reader, and shortly after her sister's death, would contribute many of her papers both to Bowling Green State University and to Joan's Alma mater Yale.

Published works

Author

Children's books "Ladies and Gentlemen," said the Ringmaster (1938) Seesaw (1964) You Can't Catch Me (1976) Hi, Jock, Run Around the Block (1978)

Novels To Meet Miss Long (1943) Open House (1946)

Editor

Anthologies

The Edge of the Chair (1967) Some Things Dark and Dangerous (1970) Some Things Fierce and Fatal (1971) Some Things Strange and Sinister (1973) Trial and Terror (1973)

Open at Your Own Risk (1975) Some Things Weird and Wicked (1976) Chilling and Killing (1978) Handle With Care: Frightening Stories (1985) Ready or Not: Here Come Fourteen Frightening Stories! (1987)