Rites of Passage

Readers with a penchant for publishing-industry trivia may recall a story from 20 years ago, about an enterprising Canadian author, Sandra Gulland. The author of a trilogy of best-selling books about Josephine Bonaparte, Gulland hit upon an ingenious scheme to ensure her sophomore novel disappointed as few of her readers as possible: she focus-grouped the manuscript with an audience committed to close reading (and book buying): book clubs. The technique worked so well she used it again for her third book. It seemed both a creative way of diffusing writer’s block, and a curious signal in the business of making and selling books, a symptom of a new cultural aversion to risk. Certainly it was prescient. Consumer analytics—a live, tickertape update on focus groups—now shapes much of the culture we consume. We prefer these days to leave risk to youthful, cortisol-addled financial traders (who can sink companies, and lives). The business of culture, we...