Morrison ended the letter with a trace of humility. She set that modesty aside quickly, however, and reinforced her letter with honest bravado, concluding with a final pitch about her confidence in the book.

I suspect this letter should include some information about myself— something to prevent you from ignoring this letter— but that’s probably presumptuous [sic] if not just a waste of letter reading time. Let me just say. . . :I want to publish books about us— black people— that will make some sense— to give joy, to pass on some grandeur to all those black children (born and unborn) who need to get to the horizon with something under their arms besides Dick and Jane and the Rise & Fall of the Roman Empire. . . . I have already published some books that I believe do that. I know the one I have described to you will do more.

9. The Extraordinariness of Ordinary Black Womanhood

While Morrison had counted on Chase-Riboud’s personality to help sell the book, Chase-Riboud belatedly declared that she wanted to sell the book exclusively on its merits. She desperately wanted to avoid the fate of the artist who had to “tap dance for prizes and coverage.” When she lamented that “even coveted things like the Yale poetry prize has [sic] no meaning because its value is blurred because of its commercial value,” Morrison shot back:

I don’t understand what you are saying about holding a firm line between the work and the publicity. I hope you are right that people who like the work will “do things” for it without being asked— that would relive us entirely of doing anything at all other than manufacturing it— but it is probably not a good idea for us to take that risk. We have to think of all sorts of anonymous people walking into a book store and wanting to buy the book for some reason— one reason I can give them is that they have heard or read about it. . . . I must also try to get booksellers to put in [sic] on their shelves and they will do that for one of two reasons: Random [House] says so or they too have heard about it. So. What is that but publicity?. . . . This is a commercial house historically unenchanted with 500 slim volumes of profound poetry that languish in stockrooms.

But by May 7, Morrison shifted from Durham’s patient defender to his outright critic. The problem was that Durham’s secretary (or whomever he sent to deliver the pages) left a mere thirty-eight pages. The fact that they seemed hastily done annoyed her. The clandestine delivery to the receptionist without asking to see or speak to Morrison or Silberman infuriated her. The package was dropped off “and hurried away,” as if the manuscript was a ransom note. She wrote Durham in full candor.

For some reason that I cannot quite explain I was ashamed. On every level—professional, personal— I felt a deep and painful embarrassment. . . . Only my vigorous and sincere agitation has kept this contract alive. . . . But the contempt for those efforts which you displayed in last Thursday’s scenario left me so melancholy and so hurt I believed I would strangle if I didn’t tell you how I felt. . . .

You have never seemed to choose candor in dealing with me, a fact that has depressed me for a long time now. . . . I could manage with your patronising me. I cannot manage with your contempt.

14. Letting Giants Talk

Morrison seemed unbothered by the tussle and accepted his apology. She wrote back casually:

Now that our author-editor relationship has been baptized and duly anointed with our first spat, we can get on with our business.

It was really awful to have to go to a huge sales conference to present your book with the slammed phone ringing in my ear. But it worked out o.k. I even got printing up from 7,500 to 10,000 (paper) when the whole mood of the house is ‘cut printings and raise prices.’ . . .

Maybe my anger improved my delivery. . . .

All’s well, Chinweizu. . . .

I can never stay angry at people— only institutions.

The fact that she knew the letter was coming and they had resolved the problem did little to avert Morrison’s annoyance with the first letter. Flummoxed, she wrote:

I will probably always be befuddled about what you imagine this publishing company to be and about your reasons for ascribing sinister motives to a copyediting mistake of placing your name after Miller Williams. I can only assume you had some bad experiences with other publishers.

We make errors, Jim, and I am sure that I will never be wholly free of that frailty. What I (we) don’t do is spend time thinking up silly ways to tell the world on a book jacket that one of our own authors is racially inferior to his co-author and/or has done “less” work. . . . But more than the misunderstanding, I regret the absence of trust which is the single most important ingredient to exist between author and editor. I wish you thought I deserved it.