Edition: U.S. / Global

Farrar, Straus Heir Apparent Quits in a Genteel Family Tiff

Published: September 23, 1993

Roger Straus 3d, long the heir apparent to his father at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, the privately owned book publisher, announced yesterday that he was resigning as managing director of the company because of "philosophical differences."

That leaves open the question of who will run the firm after the elder Mr. Straus, now 76, either retires or dies. He co-founded Farrar, Straus in 1946 and his idiosyncratic personality has set its tone ever since. Despite the younger Mr. Straus's resignation, however, he is to remain a stockholder and will have controlling interest in Farrar, Straus after his father's death, the company said.

Neither man would say what disputes led to the resignation. But editors both within and outside the company, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that differences had been simmering for a long time while father and son feuded over the roles of marketing and promotion and over how much growth would be reasonable in a company that has traditionally been a genteel champion of literary novels.

Some said it was a classic case of a father unwilling to let go and move on and a son, now 49, feeling more and more frustrated at his lack of control over a company that has been in his family all his life.

What makes it all the more poignant is that in an age of media conglomerates and corporate takeovers, Farrar, Straus is one of an increasingly small number of publishers that remain independent, family-run and financially viable.

The company prides itself on having more Nobel Prize winners than any other American publisher, among them Derek Walcott, Czeslaw Milosz and Isaac Bashevis Singer. It is also known also for musty offices, an old-school approach to publishing and for authors like Carlos Fuentes, Susan Sontag and John McPhee.

"Roger Straus is a vestige from an earlier time in publishing," one rival editor said. "The company has become a symbol to people in the industry, to other heads of houses, of the best kind of publishing. It's the house that's managed to survive when other people are swallowed up."

Both men took care to stress that this was no Haft-style family feud, filled with the kind of animosity, lawsuits and countersuits generated by the owners of Dart Drug, who also own Crown Books. The Strausses put out a joint press release in which each wished the other well and expressed regret at the parting.

"I am sad that my son has decided to resign from the firm," said Roger Straus, the company's president, chief executive and editor in chief, in a statement praising his son's "enormous contributions" to the company.

In an interview, he added: "We disagree about certain directions the firm is going, but that's as far as I can go. It's friendly, amicable and loving, but it's a disagreement. He wants to try something else, I think, but I'm not sure what it is."

Mr. Straus 3d did not return telephone calls yesterday, but said in the statement that he had the "utmost admiration" for his father and for the company. "I wish them nothing but continuing success in the future," he said. A Study in Contrasts

The two Strausses are a study in contrasting styles. The father is dapper, given to wearing ascots and moving easily in European literary circles. His more informal son, bearded and often jacketless, is known as "Rog."

The younger Mr. Straus left the company once before. Beginning his career at Farrar, Straus, he left it in 1985 to take various jobs at Avon Books and Times Books, among other places, with the understanding that he would take over one day.

But he and his father never agreed on what direction the firm should take and how it should better deal with an increasingly competitive book market.

Flush with money from the incredible commercial success of Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and Scott Turow's "Presumed Innocent," the company, under the vehement urging of Roger Straus 3d, hired several people in the late 1980's in an effort to expand its presence in serious nonfiction, only to drop that expansion effort and eliminate more than a dozen spots within the last two years as the recession struck.

"Rog has been interested in growing the company more aggressively, in expanding it, much more so than his father," said one editor who knows both men. "But he's Roger's only child, and it's not that they're ceasing to speak to each other. This is not a war."

Photo: Roger Straus 3d, left, who is leaving Farrar, Straus & Giroux, with his father, Roger Straus, right, at the company's Manhattan office in 1988. (Jack Manning/The New York Times)