Enter Pat & Pals

Police in seven states were looking for Alfred A. Knopf Jr., only son of leading Publisher (Borzoi Books), Gourmet and Skier Alfred A. Knopf Sr. Young (19) Knopf had left home and a summer job with a printing firm, despondent over being refused by Princeton, and determined (as he said in a note) not to return till he made good. A week later police found him in Salt Lake City, barefoot, hungry and broke. He had started out with $15, the last $2 of which someone had stolen from him while he was sleeping on a lawn in Utah. Bitterly, "Pat" Knopf noted that only truck drivers had helped him ("The rest of the people are a bunch of damned snobs") in his hitchhike attempt to reach Reno, where he "knew a lot of rich people" and hoped to get started on his own.

That was 22 years ago. Since then, would-be Princetonian Knopf went to college (Union) and became vice president (sales) of the firm in which his father is board chairman and his mother president. But he still knows some rich people, and he still wants to make it on his own. Last week Publishers' Row was startled by the news that a major new publishing firm was being founded by Pat Knopf and two big bookmen--Hiram Haydn, 51, for the past three years editor in chief of Random House, and Simon Michael Bessie, 43, one of the top editors of Harper.

In a fiercely competitive trade with big risks, small profit margins and notoriously old-fashioned business methods, the launching of new firms is rare. Said one intrigued bystander about the Knopf-Haydn-Bessie venture: "[It is as if] the presidents of General Motors, Chrysler and Ford left their jobs to start an automobile company." Said one publishing bigwig, who lunched with Random House Boss Bennett Cerf a week ago: "When the rumor came up, Bennett's face was a real study."

More than Circus. By this week, Cerf's face was composed as he said: "I think it's a wonderful thing for the book business. They should be very, very successful." Pat Knopf's new partners are certainly very, very savvy editors. Harper's Bessie (past jobs: U.S. public affairs officer in the Paris embassy, Look editor, OWI) has worked with such authors as Marcel Ayme, Alfred Hayes and John Cheever. Random House's Haydn (past jobs: editor of Crown and Bobbs-Merrill) edits The American Scholar, the Phi Beta Kappa journal, teaches fiction writing at the New School for Social Research. He wrote several novels, notably The Time Is Noon (1948), a panoramic view of American life that included some acid sidelights on the publishing business. In one scene, an ambitious junior editor is building up an awful novel to please a top publisher ("who wore knickers to the office and had only Wall Street friends"). The big man rewards him with: "I think you'll like publishing . . . There's plenty in front of you, young man. [But] it isn't all circus tricks."

Editor Haydn has worked with such authors as Jerome (The Enemy Camp) Weidman and Ayn (The Fountainhead) Rand, discovered or brought along such young novelists as William (Lie Down in Darkness) Styron and H. L. (Paris Underground) Humes. Says another of his authors, Truman Capote: "He is one of these very fatherly types. He is aggressively normal--you can see the blink behind the eye even though the eye is open. He is very much the commuter, and really the perfect editor--for people who need an editor."

Presumably some of the authors with whom the new partners worked before will follow to the new firm. One obstacle to an early mass switch: a clause in standard publishing contracts requiring authors to give their publishers first refusal on their next book. Says Bessie of this clause: "I am not in favor of any devices to tie a writer to his publisher." As an inducement to new authors ("We hope to publish the best we can"), the partners are considering more lucrative terms for writers. One of the trio's projects: a line of high-quality paperbacks.

Too Many Books? As of this week, the boys were mum about their financial backing, but one known angel is Investor Richard Ernst, a former Knopf employee (in the sales department) who is married to Department Store Heiress Susan Bloomingdale. As for father Knopf, 66, he had no comment on his son's exodus. A publisher who has often complained that the trade is turning out far too many books, Knopf Sr. only said: "There have always been new firms, and I guess this will be a good one," As for Pat, 41, he seemed to be on his own at last.

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