Middlewomen: Laura McGrath on the 25 People Who Control American Fiction

“Just 25 literary agents represent more than half of all prizewinning novelists in the 21st century. The agent is the unacknowledged legislator of the literary field.” — Laura McGrath

We think of publishers and editors as the ultimate tastemakers. As those godlike gatekeepers controlling what we read. But if you’re looking for literary gods, Laura McGrath argues, then you need to look at literary agents rather than publishers or editors. Her ten-year project, Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction, is the first serious scholarly account of the literary agent’s astonishingly powerful role in shaping what America reads. Except, of course, the Middlemen are actually Middlewomen — since 80% of literary agents are women.

The numbers are striking. Just 25 literary agents represent more than half of all prizewinning novelists in the 21st century. McGrath interviewed 75 of them over ten years. Shelley called poets the unacknowledged legislators of the world. McGrath’s agents are the unacknowledged legislators of the literary field. They shaped postmodernism (Candida Donadio and Pynchon, Heller, Gaddis). They launched the debut novel as a literary form. They made the short story collection viable. And 25 of them control more than half of the prizes.

So will AI replace the agent? In operations, perhaps, McGrath acknowledges — the slush pile is overwhelming and smart machine assistance is welcome. But in creative work — in the business of writing, editing, translation, cover design, and above all taste — she thinks not. No algorithm will ever learn the Catch-22 of publishing — separating the Thomas Pynchon or Joseph Heller from all the dross. And no bot (male or female) is ever going to host a three-martini lunch in Manhattan.

Five Takeaways

•       The Literary Agent as the New Gatekeeper: Replacing the Publisher: In the early 20th century, publishing was shaped by the taste of individual publishers: Bennett Cerf at Random House, Alfred and Blanche Knopf at their imprint, Max Perkins at Scribner’s. Those days are over. Publishers are now conglomerates where individual editors may have excellent taste but no single figure shapes the house. Into that vacuum has come the literary agent — who now operates, McGrath argues, exactly as the great publishers once did: as the primary tastemaker, the person whose aesthetic and commercial judgment shapes what America reads.

•       25 Agents, Half the Prizes, 80% Women: The Numbers: McGrath’s most striking statistical finding: just 25 literary agents represent more than half of all prizewinning novelists in the 21st century. Twenty-five people. The field is 80% women — hence the tongue-in-cheek title — and 73% white. Agents tend, McGrath found, to represent authors who resemble themselves. One answer to the question “why is contemporary literary fiction so white?” is: because agents are. And agents, because they work on contingency fees rather than salaries, face severe financial pressures that concentrate power at the top of the profession.

•       The Unacknowledged Legislators: Agents Shaped American Literary History: McGrath’s book is full of literary history rewritten from the agent’s perspective. Sterling Lord persisted past dozens of rejections to place On the Road for Kerouac. Candida Donadio — Pynchon’s, Heller’s, Gaddis’s, and early Philip Roth’s agent — championed maximalist, experimental writers whom no one was interested in, and built the social network of editor relationships that made postmodernism possible. The debut novel as a cultural form, the persistence of the short story collection d