Here at the New Yorker

Rating:
Summary: A fine companion to "About Town"
Review: Having just read the new "About Town The New Yorker and the World it Made" I felt compelled to go back and reread Brendan Gill's memoirs of his days working for Harold Ross and William Shawn.

Some critic called "Here at the New Yorker" "wonderful entertainment". That is wrong--this book does not entertain it probes. Granted there are some funny anecdotes and glances of writers like Scott Fitzgerald. But the book has a darker more serious side as well.

I imagine that Brendan Gill has made many enemies with his book. He talked about Editor Harold Ross's racism and William Shawn's phobias. Of many he writers he either praises them or he says they did not produce much legible writing at all.

But these dark character portraits are wonderfully written and penetrate deep. After reading Gill I think I can more carefully size up my peers. This one is a drunk never-do-well. That one works all day to keep away from his wife. Brendan Gill has the novelist's eye for detail.

Rating:
Summary: A fine companion to "About Town"
Review: Having just read the new "About Town The New Yorker and the World it Made" I felt compelled to go back and reread Brendan Gill's memoirs of his days working for Harold Ross and William Shawn.

Some critic called "Here at the New Yorker" "wonderful entertainment". That is wrong--this book does not entertain it probes. Granted there are some funny anecdotes and glances of writers like Scott Fitzgerald. But the book has a darker more serious side as well.

I imagine that Brendan Gill has made many enemies with his book. He talked about Editor Harold Ross's racism and William Shawn's phobias. Of many he writers he either praises them or he says they did not produce much legible writing at all.

But these dark character portraits are wonderfully written and penetrate deep. After reading Gill I think I can more carefully size up my peers. This one is a drunk never-do-well. That one works all day to keep away from his wife. Brendan Gill has the novelist's eye for detail.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent b.g. information on everyone's favorite magazine
Review: It was interesting to read about the writers and editors who helped make The New Yorker a magazine of such distinction. I bought this book during that whole rage of last year when "Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker" was all over the place. In the time since I read this book, I resubscribed to the magazine. Periodically, I read glimpses of the magazine's former glory in its pages. I don't think I could read "Gone," though. Even though I know The New Yorker is not as good as it once was, that doesn't mean I have to take a broom handle to it. That's why I found "Here at The New Yorker" great, pricisely because of its balance.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent b.g. information on everyone's favorite magazine
Review: It was interesting to read about the writers and editors who helped make The New Yorker a magazine of such distinction. I bought this book during that whole rage of last year when "Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker" was all over the place. In the time since I read this book, I resubscribed to the magazine. Periodically, I read glimpses of the magazine's former glory in its pages. I don't think I could read "Gone," though. Even though I know The New Yorker is not as good as it once was, that doesn't mean I have to take a broom handle to it. That's why I found "Here at The New Yorker" great, pricisely because of its balance.