Harlan Ellison recalls the day he assaulted his publisher

This is the story Harlan Ellison tells of that day in 1982: He had just assaulted his publisher. Before anyone could think to call the police, Ellison’s editor sneaked him out of the building in the freight elevator. He jumped into a cab and 15 minutes later walked into a studio to tape a talk show with Isaac Asimov, Gene Wolfe, Calvin Trillin and Studs Terkel.

“I have just come from physically assualting the CEO of Grosset & Dunlap,� he recalls telling them. That didn’t get captured on tape -- see the video of the show here -- but he did mention being frustrated with his publisher. When I reached him by phone to ask about that day, he told me this tale of the assault, with no small amount of glee.

First, try to picture it: Harlan Ellison, 5-foot-5, leather jacket, with the growly attitude of an angry author who’s just come off a redeye from L.A. His publisher was 6-foot-2, with the bearing of a Boston blueblood, wearing a suit and tie, of course. He was exiting his corner office in a New York skyscraper.

“I breezed past all the impediments and got to the inner offices,� Ellison recalls. “We met in the aisle where the typing pool was.�

Ellison was upset about one of the books the publisher had recently reissued: His 1961 rock ‘n’ roll novel “Spider Kiss� had mistakenly been labeled science fiction, which he knew would be misleading to readers. There had been an acrimonious exchange about it -- but only by mail. In person, Ellison says, his publisher “didn’t know me from a pissoir.�

“I put him in a hold that I had learned from Bruce Lee. I took him to his knees. Then I duck-walked him back to his door,� on his knees all the way, Ellison recounts. The typing pool, all women then, stopped work and watched the show, he says, “with enormous pleasure.�

When they got back to the man’s office, the publisher on his knees, Ellison says he banged the man’s head into the door until he opened it. They went inside -- the publisher, Ellison and Ellison’s editor, a woman he remembers fondly, who soon was huddling on a couch.

“I picked up a chair and threw it,� Ellison says. Rather than shattering the windows, “it bounced around the room.� The publisher had scrambled behind his desk and was dialing the phone.

“I jumped onto the desk and ripped the phone out of the wall,� Ellison says. Back in 1982, that’s how phones worked -- they had cords, attached to walls. “He tried to crawl through the desk’s kneehole. I grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the room.�

It was then that his editor’s condition -- “crunched in a fetal position in horror� -- started to get through to him. “I realized, ‘My god, you’ve gone mad,’� he says. He thought of the Tombs, New York City’s notorious detention center. “I’ve been in jail -- I don’t like jail,� Ellison thought. He followed his quick-thinking editor, who headed for the freight elevator. “We ran for our lives.�

And then Ellison went to the video taping with Studs Terkel and Isaac Asimov and Gene Wolfe and Calvin Trillin. “I loved Studs,� he said when I reached him by phone. “I had a wonderful day.�

Is 31 years long enough for the statute of limitations to run out on causing a ruckus in a publisher’s office?

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