According to American publishing mythology, there was a time when giants bestrode Midtown Manhattan. They came from Chicago, from Oregon, from Pennsylvania, from nearby New Jersey, or from the outer reaches of the city itself: Coney Island, the Bronx. Bellow, Kesey, Updike, Roth, Heller, Doctorow. Gardner and Barth, Pynchon and Coover, Mailer and Malamud. They did battle with editors Gottlieb, Giroux, Straus, Epstein, Lish, Cowley. From the rubble of their contests rose great and enduring monume...