Robert was prickly and funny, and there are few people I'd rather have copyedit one of my books. He was, as you say, the best nit-picker ever. He'll be sorely missed.

If not, my condolences to you and all who did know him.

He was the Robert L. who posted here occasionally, right?

Like Teresa, I'm totally stunned. We've known Robert absolutely forever.

Thank you for posting this. I'll help spread the word.

One of the stories that I hope Teresa will tell in more detail is how Robert volunteered to copy-edit Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho, with the consequence, among other things, of one of Teresa's finer essays.

P.

My deepest condolences to his friends and family.

He was my roommate last Readercon and I was looking forward to going again with him this year.

My deepest sympathies to his family.

My heart goes out to those who will feel his absence.

I believe I first met Robert at the first Fanoclasts meeting we attended, probably in 1993. Toni Weiskopf had with her a bag of recent Baen releases, and Robert opened up one and found a typo on the first page he examined--"Not one I worked on", he said. He managed to do this in a way that made Toni amused rather than furious, a one of his great traits.

He will, of course, be received in the western lands as one of the most admirable of the legion of F*rb*r-bearers. I just wish he had had a lot longer in the mortal realm.

He was meticulously accurate and knowledgeable about all the subjects that interested him: a very long list. He was also a fearless if irritable urban bicyclist, a fair rock guitarist, and a decent cook when he felt like it.

The word for world is word. I didn't feel this lost when Terry Carr died. When Robert and I worked together, it felt like we were jointly responsible for the English language, and we never gave each other an inch. (If either of us had, the other would have been gravely offended.) We agreed that he was a hair better at proofreading and I was a hair better at copy editing. We never could agree on whether an American who used acknowledgement was exercising a personal preference or making an error.

I doubt it would be possible to come up with a comprehensive list of the books which passed through his hands and were the better for it.

The books include Shriek: An Afterword by Jeff VanderMeer; The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero by William Kalush and Larry Sloman; Apollo's Fire: A Day on Earth in Nature and Imagination by Michael Sims; James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice Sheldon by Julie Phillips; Birth of the Cool: Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant Garde by Lewis MacAdams; Martin Scorcese Presents the Blues: A Musical Journey by Peter Guralnick, Robert Santelli, and Christopher John Farley; The New Rolling Stone Album Guide: Completely Revised and Updated 4th Edition by Nathan Brackett and Christian Hoard; and Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language by Ilan Stavans. Also turning up in the Amazon search: some Spanish art books and graphic novels for which Robert did the English translation. Robert spoke good enough Spanish to have, on several occasions, lived in Spain for months at a time, where he worked as (among other things) a building super, thus--in Teresa's observation--helping maintain parity in the universe.

My condolences to those of you who will miss him more to the degree that they knew him better.

I could feel that over here.
You have my deepest sympathies.

His comments were always intelligent and often quite droll. My sympathies to all who knew him.

Ave atque vale, Frater
If not for this man, then the next

I didn't know him, save through friends
Whose grief alone our measure makes

I feel as though I'm oil on water
Brilliant, shining, fading, gone

Too soon will I be dead and done
Too few will know I ever was

Too many will (I hope) be saddened
To see me go, as he has gone.

++++

Nothing to say really. My sympathies to all who knew him. I am reminded that I'm not getting any younger, and neither are my friends.

Teresa, the stab at verse is abi's fault, and your inspiration, We never could agree on whether an American who used acknowledgement was exercising a personal preference or making an error. made me chuckle, and said more about him than anything more elaborate could

Should I ever find myself submitting something to you, be assured it is a preference on my part, even if I be in error.

(Damn, damn, damn.)

We usually agreed on the fine points. For instance, an author could use gray or grey, but not both. However, if they were talking about the Confederacy, it had to be gray, not grey.

Here's an example of us disagreeing over a fine point: Robert held that vermillion and supercede were non-preferred forms, and that they'd only been included in certain dictionaries because they're such chronic misspellings. I held that they were objectively wrong, and that their inclusion in certain dictionaries was blatant pandering to erroneous popular opinion.

Difference this made in the finished product: none.

I was Teresa's assistant and the third arm of the Managing Editorial triumvirate at Tor when Robert was the Assistant Man Ed. He was everything that's been said: generous and grumpy and devoted to The Word. And whenever stories of adventures were told, Robert always seemed to have done more, been more places, dealt with worse manuscripts than anyone else in the room. That was probably because he had. It doesn't seem possible that he's gone.

He was one of the most kind, generous and compassionate people I've ever met and spent time with. He was one of those out of the sf/f community that hung as happily with my husband as with me, and my husband enjoyed hanging with him.

Damn, damn, damn.

Love, C.

Robert was one of those people on the edges of my world, I never would have known him if Teresa hadn't introduced us.

Thank you Teresa for bringing him into my life, however briefly.

Damn, I can't believe he's gone.

Condolences to all who knew him.

Which is to say that I'm as shocked and saddened as everyone else here.

Teresa, will you post any funeral info here? I'd rather not burden Jeanne with having to answer dozens of emails right now.

---Gordon V.G.

Dammit.

I never learn. The last time I was in New York City, I had a spare day, and he had said days before that if I had some spare time, I should give him a call and we'd meet up. I didn't call. Figured another time would be just as good. I never learn.

My condolences to all.

and much sympathy to his friends and co-workers.

I am having flashbacks. We had the same thing happen with a dear friend about this time last year.

I wish it would stop but I fear at our general average age, it won't. dammit.

Blessings all.

that's a fine thing to be remembered by.

To say I'm shocked by this news is an understatement. He'll be very missed.

Dona nobis pacem.

My sympathies to all who mourn Robert Legault, and assurances to all who will go after him. Know his passing was without pain, fear, or hesitation.

My sympathy to all who knew and loved him.

I expect Mike has already welcomed him to the party, and they're probably catching up on stuff.

I mostly knew him online, and I'm going to miss him here and on lj.

As inadequate a word as it is, condolences.

When I passed him in the hall later, on my way out, he said offhandedly, "You do good work."

Softie.

I see his blog and a picture have already been linked upthread. Here's a link to his Making Light comments. (This might not be all of them if he signed in more than one way, but it's a bunch.)

Sympathy, Jeanne, P&T, et al. Sympathy.

In addition...well, before that, I thought the hair of the dog was just an alcoholic's excuse to start another binge (I was such a kind, sympathetic person back then). After, I started treating everything as if it might have some basis in fact, wondering what the basis was, and speculating even for things with NO basis in fact what the world would be like if they were true. I've written some hilarious flights of fancy as a result.

My condolences to everyone who knew and loved him.

*grieves quietly*

God damn it.

Damn.

Jane

As well as being a great guy and a world class copyeditor, he was also a terrific writer -- just look back at any of his substantive posts on his journal. He'd write about walking down the street and finding a record or helping someone clear their apartment and it would evoke the whole context of time and place and complexity.

I hardly knew him, but the world feels emptier without him.

He was always friendly to me. He'll be missed.

Courtly, yes.

My condolences, sympathy, and sorrow.

Those who know him will remember his smile whenever a bastardized reference to The Big Lebowski was made, and can see his response to this:

Robert may have left the building, but The Dude abides.

At the big group dinner after my reading at the KGB Bar last year, Robert sat next to my wife. I didn't hear a peep out of her the entire night, she was so engrossed in conversation with him. Afterwards I remember walking back to our hotel talking with her about what a gentle soul Robert is. Was.

Crap. Thanks, Death. Thanks a frickin' lot.

I always enjoyed hanging out with Robert (not Bob). I would mostly see him at parties, including some of mine. On one occasion we "temporarily" traded my original Butterfly Kid for his John W. Campbell letters. It was a running joke between us - every time he came out I would show him his book to prove it remained extant and available, (and that I still hadn't read it).

Robert was indeed a "fun guy," at least in the sense that this blog would define fun! He also was unique in that all of his idiosyncrasies were endearing ones. I'm so sorry to hear the news; sympathy to all.

I am trying to locate MaryLou Currier for Jeanne, and will e-mail offline.

Reading all of this is so heartening--I am glad we saw DOA with Legs at the last video night!

xx

My condolences to everyone suffering his passing.

"Growing old will be a series of goodbyes..."

If that's meant to be a comforting thought right now, it's not.

Robert would have spotted it immediately.

Just so. I'm sorry, Scraps.

Thanks for sharing that Terry!

My most profound sympathies go out to his friends and family.

Martha (83), it's good to see you here. I felt helpless and stupid when I heard the news, then realized I didn't have current contact information for you. I figured you'd hear it through the grapevine, but it's not the same.

One of my favorite copyediting stories from Robert was about proofreading Tristram Shandy for you after someone had erroneously transmitted the wrong edition for typesetting. As I understand it, he proofed the typesetting against the preferred edition, forcing it into compliance: by his account, a massive piece of work.

I'll swap you. At one point a consulting editor who shall remain nameless (but probably isn't the first one you thought of) turned in a huge career-spanning collection by a major SF author. It wasn't just a bunch of stories. It contained all kinds of material.

What he turned in wasn't a manuscript. It was more a collection of components and instructions. For instance, some sections were tear sheets from large-format magazines. These came with notes telling Production to xerox off the pertinent text (which didn't fit onto a standard manuscript page), paste it up on 8-1/2" x 11" paper, xerox it again so it wasn't a mechanical, give it the following title heads, insert it in the main manuscript at thus-and-such point, and renumber to fit the overall sequence.

In short, it was the classic project that should have been returned to its editor with a note saying to bring it back when it was a manuscript; but it was an important book, so ... you know how that goes.

The nominal editor just did the deal, gathered the components, and delivered it as a DIY story collection kit. It was Robert who built the model--physically reconstituting pages, arranging to get missing material, doing bibliographical research to correct misinformation, establishing and systematizing quotation formats and hierarchies of subheads, creating scholarly appurtenance plus complex frontmatter and backmatter, and marking up the whole damn thing to make it orderly and consistent.

I remember him bringing in his own magazine copies of "The [Widget], the [Wadget] and Boff" when he realized that our setting copy, a later reprint, had simplified the typography and made a hash of the footnotes. He brought in his own texts for a number of the Tor Doubles. Come to think of it, the first time I got the measure of Robert as a proofreader was back at Chelsea House, when an editor had turned in a rat's nest of a chapter on Edmund Spenser (memorialized forever after at the Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism as, "If your first footnote says Ibid., you have problems"), and Robert corrected the footnotes and bibliography out of his own library.

The best one from the Tor Doubles was when Robert figured out that a previous small-press edition of one of our titles would come out at exactly the right length once we subtracted its full-page illustrations. We ordered a copy from Other Change. When it arrived, it proved to be a beautiful signed-and-numbered limited edition with tipped-in plates. Eeeesh.

I had a length of blue satin ribbon in my desk, so I got out my X-acto knife, tied the ribbon around it in a bow, and centered it on top of the sacrificial book in the middle of Robert's desk -- the message being, "This was your idea. You cut it up."

Everywhere we turn in our apartment there is some sign of Robert. In the refrigerator is most of the six-pack of Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray I always kept on hand, knowing he enjoyed it. On the shelves -- many books he provided one way or the other. On our computer I've got one entire folder marked mp3s from Robert for the last time he was over, a few weeks ago, to download a batch. (I received an iPod for Xmas. He downloaded 700 tunes onto it; everything I listen to, every morning, he picked.)

In our daughter Lilly's room there are two things immediately evident that he gave her -- one a very goofy plastic toy chihuahua vaguely reminiscent of our own real one, and the other a very nice doll in pink hat and sweater that he gave to Lilly either last May or the one before, for her birthday -- I wish I could remember -- that had belonged to his mother, and he wanted her to have it. It's all I can do to keep from crying, right now.

Deep condolences to his sister Jeanne, his cousins the Volins, and all who miss him. His loss diminishes us all.

We got to know each other well while I was still in NY. He really was a great guy. He let me stay at his apartment after going to a concert nearby at least once.

I haven't seen him too often since I moved out here to Los Angeles, and the past couple of times I came to NY I never managed to make it into Manhattan so I couldn't see him. I didn't even get a chance to call him, but figured there was always next time. I don't think I'd spoken to him in over a year, although I was watching his LiveJournal. I was hoping to see him at Lunacon, and now I feel awful about not speaking to him for so long.

I guess it's just as well I hadn't gotten around to buying my flight to NY, since now I will probably skip Lunacon and just fly out for the memorial service instead.

He always wanted to get the language right—any language. I found the list of Dutch words and terms that he asked me to check when he was proofreading Ian Buruma’s “Murder in Amsterdam”:
Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie [a political party]
Lijst Pim Fortuyn [his party]
verongelijktheid [feeling of being wronged]
relnicht [“screaming queen”]
Reading the list of words makes me miss him a lot, because I know he liked them. Words, in any language.

The last time I saw him was last March, at a party for “James Tiptree, Jr.” at the St. Martin’s office. (Not only did he proofread the book, he was the one who said, when I was first talking about writing it, that I should call up Gordon Van Gelder. Without Robert, maybe no book.) He and I left the Flatiron Building together, on a glorious early spring afternoon, and walked down Broadway to St. Mark’s Books, talking about I don’t know what—probably publishing or Spanish comics. We hugged goodbye—he was a good person to hug, he was so round and squeezy—and he went home to do some more work.

I really, really wish he were still around.

That's O.K.:)

Yeah, it's tough to stay in touch with people when things get busy, even if they are nearby. I know in my case going to school full time and working part time hasn't been helping. And I know he was always busy with his work, which made it tough to see him sometimes.

I guess something like this can make you want to get in touch with people again. In fact I just did a Google search for one friend I haven't spoken to since 2001 and I think I finally tracked him down through his company's website, and I think I found an address for another friend I haven't spoken to for even longer than that. Maybe if I stay home for Spring Break it'll give me a chance to get back in touch with a few people.

my condolences to his friends and family.

He was at the "kid's table" for our wedding (many XCU shots from the table camera), so I fear the only good shot we have of him from that is talking with Don Keller, looking every bit the gentleman he was.

Augh.

I enjoyed eating with you, whether at my home (you did always love my cooking)or a restaurant. The conversation was always excellent!

Thank you for proof reading the letters I wrote before I sent them out. You would always find something to correct. Thank you for teaching me how to spell the word "accommodate". Oh and thanks for helping me fix my bike too.

All in all Robert, thank you for being there when I needed you. I am glad I was there for you as well. I will always be proud to refer to you as my friend.

It's an honor to have known you.

Later I would make a joke of it - "I went to the Landon Senior Prom with the man who proofread 'American Psycho'."

Bob was not only smart and funny, he played a great guitar and seemed to know almost everything, which is understandable, since he read for a living. He would come out with some piece of arcana and explain it in detail, and sometimes I would think "Bob, that's enough, OK?" but would let him go on because it was interesting and because he was such a good friend.

I will miss him forever.

Stephanie

Where he was in fine form, of course--I chiefly remember a long conversation in the group about ailments and illnesses we or friends and relatives currently had or recently had had. It was an oddly comforting and familiar sort of conversation--one that I find takes place only among people who like and trust one another in a certain way. The feel was partially "can you top this" and partially "what did you do to relieve the symptoms of that" and partially "it's okay because we're all still here."

And now we're not.

I regret that I will be unable to attend the memorial as that's the day of my synagogue's Purim celebration. But the next time I go to services, I'll say Kaddish for Robert.

I remember robert's kindness in putting Gary Farber up for a period of time in a less than ideal situation. the apartment was a long and narrow set of rooms without a hallway, to get anywhere you had to walk from one room to another to get to the bathroom or kitchen area, which eliminated any sense of privacy.

My brother's memorial service will be on Sunday
March 9 at 10:30 a.m. at the Beth Abraham Memorial Chapel 199 Bleecker Street between 6th Ave and Macdougal Street (Bob would be proud of me for remembering the "c" in Bleecker!)
Their phone # is 212-614-2300 if you need to ask them for directions.

In place of flowers, if you wish, please make a donation to

http://www.jazzfoundation.org/

Thank you everyone for your kind (and often amusing) words!
Jeanne

Even though I hadn't seen him in quite a while, I was thinking about him just last week. Here's what it was: for maybe a few days in the mid-nineties I resurrected a favorite answering machine greeting I had used in the eighties, featuring the beginning of "Hanging on the Telephone." (Blondie, remember?) So one day I come home and hit the "play" button and hear a recording of Robert bursting out laughing. Loud, but slow, of course. "Hi," he teased, "is DEBBIE home?"

So maybe fourteen years later I'm walking down the street smiling, remembering that, and it turns out he's gone. My heart goes out to all of you who stayed close to him. What he was like was just as good as what he liked.

My condolences on your loss. Sudden bereavements are so difficult.

May they both, indeed, rest in peace.

Terry, my Spanish is too weak for a proper translation, but it looks very appropriate for a memorial thread. Google sometimes sends blog-naive people to old threads, without them knowing the social dynamics. But that doesn't imply they are spammers or any other kind of net-abusers.