Vital Stats:

- Sean Desmond
- 30 years old
- Editor, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press
- Born in the Bronx, grew up in Dallas; now lives in that unnamed parcel of real estate he calls the Middle East Side.

Sean's World:

In the world of publishing, Sean Desmond has done it all: author, agent, and now, editor. And yet, when it came time to try to submit his first novel, he used a pseudonym. "I figured that when we sent (the manuscript) out, we'd get a load of rejections, and I just didn't want my name to be synonymous with that. Potentially those editors we sent the book to could be future colleagues for me and I didn't want, 'Oh Desmond. He wrote that crappy book and tried to fob it off on me' in the backs of their minds."

Described as "The Shining" at Harvard, his book – "Adams Fall" – was published and also adapted into a feature film by Oscar winning Traffic screenwriter Stephen Gaghan. As will happen in the movie biz, there were a few changes from page to screen, including the introduction of a female protagonist and a new title, Abandon "Gaghan took it in another direction, to the point where I don't think I can accurately say Katie Holmes played me. It was something though to go to the Hollywood premiere, sit in the big audience, have your title card come up, and to think that in small measure you were at least the genesis of this project and all the scores of people that it takes to make a major motion picture."

Desmond’s cross-pollinated experiences are as much by accident as design. "Publishing is a pretty closed-off community, and job searches are really games of musical chairs. I ended up working for an agent because her assistant beat me out for a job at Scribner." He thinks seeing the biz from both sides "should be necessary" for everyone. "Sadly there are too many people who work at houses who look at agents as money grubbers and not advocates, and there are too many half-wit agents who don't know how a book is really produced or how to read a royalty statement."

Three key tasks at his day job: acquiring new projects, editing manuscripts and "flogging the book in house and out of house." While he can spend time reading and editing from the comfort of his home, Desmond’s not calling it in. " We have a million meetings: launch, jacket consultation, marketing, editorial; we even have a meeting on when all the meetings are. It can be exhausting because as everyone knows the more people you have in a meeting, the more opinions, and the more we retreat to group think."

Lately Desmond has found himself working with big-name authors including Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, and Gotham’s own, Michael Daly. "I love working with famous people (because they) usually got where they are by being successful at communicating their ideas to others. You learn so much about how they became successful, and they just get it quicker. They understand promotion and packaging and the force of an effective argument."

Political topics are a specialty "because books are the one place where you can pool out an argument and not rely on the "Hardball"-like quips. Not to say books can't be ridiculous agitprop – I think Ann Coulter's last book was a defense of McCarthyism for Christ's sake – but you can walk people through some thinking and get a clearer sense of things.

"I think political books are a way for people to vote with their $25. I believe political book audiences fall largely on party lines, and it's really impressive when someone like Bob Woodward can come along with "Plan of Attack" and attract an audience from both sides."

Although the cynic in many of us suspects that publishing choices are all about the Benjamins, Desmond disagrees. Most books don't make back their advance (which demonstrates) that we book editors indulge in the interesting way too much at the sacrifice of marketable. (In fact), I wish I knew why people took books off the shelf. I think it's still word of mouth."

But are people mouthing off enough? With recent studies indicating fewer people are reading these days, Desmond thinks there is cause for concern. "I look around when I'm in airports. Women, by and large, still read, but men under forty play with their iPods or watch a DVD on their laptop or fuck around with their Blackberry. That's a little scary."

Ten Things to Know about Sean (with debt to Proust, Krucoff, Meyers-Briggs and previous G.I.s):

What's the best thing you've ever purchased/salvaged from the street and/or what's the best item you've ever sold/abandoned?
To the sheer delight of my wife, I'm constantly picking through the trash on the streets. Our end table in the living room was an exceptional find and adds a certain shabby chic element that brings the room together. I also found a copy of "Harlot's Ghost" by Norman Mailer which I have yet to read.

Which city establishment sees more of your paycheck than you do?
11th Street Bar. Best bar in the city hands down. But don't go there, you'll ruin it for me. Just let me drink in peace.

Gotham Madlib: When the ________________ (noun) makes me feel _______________ (adverb), I like to ______________ (verb). Feel free to answer, or explain your answer.
I'm terrible at these. I always just want to write "dick" and "jerk off." But let me try to mature about this: When the taxis honk makes me feel upset and like we all have somewhere to go. Wait...I can't seem to do this, is it the madlib or me?

Personality problem solving: Would you consider your personality more hysterical or more obsessive, and have you changed since living in New York; has "New York" become a part of you and vice-versa?
I'm obsessive. I'm also Irish, which goes a long way towards that...be wary of people from islands...the Irish, the Sicilians, the Japanese--all insular and nuts. And yes New York has become a part of me in the sense I'm never quite clean no matter how many showers I take or piles of laundry I do. Frank O'Hara had this great little poem about New York. Paraphrasing: "Is it dirty? It sure looks dirty. Yep, it's dirty."

NYC confessional: do you have a local guilty pleasure?
Blue Nine Burger on 3rd Ave. There's crack in the special sauce. I've run tests.

When you just need to get away from it all, where is your favorite place in NYC to be alone, relish in solitude and find your earthly happiness? (We promise not to intrude.)
Bennett Park, the highest natural point in Manhattan, at 185th and Fort Washington Ave. is a nice place to meditate on what Gotham means. I also like to visit the statues of George Cohan and Father Duffy in Times Square, they seem lonely to me.

Describe that low-low moment when you thought you just might have to leave NYC for good.
Anytime I'm waiting for the subway I get this feeling. I like public transportation, but it's just so dark, dirty and smelly and you have to perfect that fifty yard stare. I always see something that upsets me ... like that guy who dances salsa with the doll or a rat chasing a pregnant woman.

What's one thing you've done (or regularly do) in NYC that you could not have conceived doing anywhere else?
I'm currently training for the NYC marathon. I love running each of the bridges – the Queensboro, the Williamsburg, the Manhattan, and the Brooklyn -- as part of my training. My favorite is the Williamsburg. You get the best views of both midtown and downtown from there.

Assuming that you're generally respectful of your fellow citizens, was there ever a time when you had to absolutely unleash your inner asshole to get satisfaction?
I've long dreamed of the day I will go insane. There's some comfort there. Institution, prepared meals, soporific drug regiment, checkers with some old trannie who thinks he's Jackie O. But in terms of the inner asshole/meltdown, I can't recall the "it" moment. Sure I've jumped the taxi line at JFK and tipped 10% to make a point, but I've never been satisfied by it. I'm the kind of guy who gets twenty dollars worth of change back on ten, doesn't say anything, and feels guilty the rest of the day.

311: Help or hoopla? Have you ever put it to use?
I use it mostly to narc on my neighbors. You know, suspicious types that Ashcroft would want to know about. Seriously, I did once use it to try and locate a cab I left some luggage in. Not very effective.

There are 8 million stories in The Naked City. Tell us one, but try to keep it to a New York Minute.
Once while drunk on martinis at the Soho Grand I spotted Robert DeNiro. He's short. My father once saw Joe DiMaggio on the street and yelled: "Hey Mr. Coffee" at him. And nowadays if I can walk down Lafayette, I do because I want a Britney and a Bowie sighting.

Sean Desmond is an editor at Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Press. Before that he spent five years working at the publisher, W. W. Norton, and the literary agency ICM. At St. Martin's, he's worked with authors including Frederick Forsyth, Homer Hickam, and Johnnie Cochran. He's also the author of "Adams Fall", a novel which inspired the movie Abandon starring Katie Holmes and Benjamin Bratt. Someday he'll finish his second novel.

-- Interview by Aaron Dobbs and Lily Oei