Vol. 19, No. 24

March 16, 2000

Professor’s ‘New Yorker’
book is talk of the town

Writing a book about The New Yorker is like entering its world with its colorful, talented and influential parade of editors, writers and artists. It was a tremendous challenge, it was fun, and I gave it my best shot,” Ben Yagoda, English, said. He is the author of the highly praised history of the landmark magazine, About Town: The New Yorker and the World It Made, recently published by Scribner. The New Yorker “resonates throughout the culture,” Yagoda writes in About Town, with the magazine becoming “the repository for increasingly high standards of English prose, taste, conscience and civility...but gradually all that weight proved to be too much for a weekly magazine to bear.” Previous books written about the magazine, which is currently celebrating its 75th anniversary, were “biographical, autobiographical or anecdotal,” he noted. Yagoda’s goal is, instead, “a critical and cultural history,” he said. Yagoda, who is from suburban New York, grew up with The New Yorker. The magazine was his mother’s favorite (she even gave him a few shares of New Yorker stock), and his interest in the magazine was “almost a matter of osmosis,” he recalled. When he read in The New York Times that the The New Yorker had donated its files to the New York Public Library, the idea of writing a book based on the files began to take hold. “I called the library on a regular basis to find out when the papers would be ready for researchers,” he recalled, “and showed up the first day they were available.” When he began browsing through the files, it was the beginning of a five-and-a half year book project. Described by The New York Times Book Review’s critic John Leonard, as “burrowing like a mad mole in 2,500 archival bins” and being “blessed with a genius for apt quotation,” Yagoda launched his research, came up with a proposal and outline and signed a contract with Scribner. Yagoda was the first writer to make comprehensive use of the files, and it was a daunting task, he recalled. “I realized I could not read all the 3,500 issues published by that time, nor read all the files, so I concentrated on the first 10 years and then browsed and selectively read files and works by the major figures connected with the magazine.” The book focuses on the years when the legendary and complex founder and editor of the magazine, Harold Ross, and his more self-effacing but equally effective successor, William Shawn, presided over the magazine until Shawn was forced out in 1987. In his review of the book, Leonard said Yagoda covers those years “like a tarp,” adding “he knows, for instance, where the money comes from (yeast) and where it went (not to the writers). He can chat up the Algonquin Round Table without fawning: they were better drinkers and logrollers than writers or wits.” Leonard also pointed out that, having been through the archives, Yagoda knew which authors and artists were unrecognized and rejected for many years, including Jules Feiffer, Edward Gorey, Saul Bellow, W. H. Auden and Kurt Vonnegut, among others. The last section of About Town, covering the years from 1987-1999, is more of an appendix than an in-depth look at the magazine under its later editors, Yagoda said. Although the book is a history of how the magazine evolved over the years and does not delve into the personal lives of the many famous writers, artists and editors linked with The New Yorker, their personalities are revealed through their memos and correspondence. “The most striking of many striking things about [the collection] was its richness… people actually communicated by writing letters back and forth–and they kept carbon copies!” Yagoda wrote. A letter from author John O’Hara, who had a “turbulent relationship” with Ross, according to Yagoda, is featured on the back cover. The gist of it is the refrain, “I want more money I want more money I want more money I want more money….” A note from Ross after John Hersey’s Hiroshima was published in a special, single issue of the New Yorker, reads, “I started to get out a light magazine that wouldn’t concern itself with the weighty problems of the universe and now look at me.” He admitted, however, that nothing had given him “as much satisfaction.” The book is peppered with memos from Katharine Angell White, Ross’ fiction editor, who worked in tandem with him to create The New Yorker but was his total opposite in personality and background. She married E.B.White, another important figure in The New Yorker’s history, who, in a Paris Review interview, said what Ross “lacked she had, what she lacked, he had. She complemented him in a way that, in retrospect, seems to have been indispensable to the survival of the magazine.” Yagoda also interviewed or corresponded with more than five dozen figures associated with the magazine during different periods of its 75 years. Among them were the late Brendan Gill, author of Here at the New Yorker; Garrison Keillor, who left The New Yorker in protest of Shawn’s dismissal; Roger Angell, Katharine White’s son and longtime fiction editor; and author John Updike. Most basic of all, Yagoda sought and received input from New Yorker readers in an author’s query in The New York Times. He received more than 700 responses, some of which he included in the book. It was if, he wrote, these longtime readers were “saying, as if in unison, ‘I thought you’d never ask!’” –Sue Moncure Critics agree About Town has received much attention and critical acclaim. It was discussed, along with other recent books about The New Yorker, in a Jan. 16 article in The New York Times and was in the lead review of The Times Book Review on Feb. 13. A reviewer in the Boston Globe called it an “exhaustively researched and highly entertaining history.” Comparing it with the current crop of books about The New Yorker, the reviewer wrote, “His re-creation of the magazine’s beginnings and its golden years (along with some less-than-golden ones) is everything the other books demonstrably are not, namely: balanced, nuanced, informative and fair-minded.” In The Columbia Journalism Review, British historian Piers Brendon called About Town “a splendid anniversary history,” adding that it “assesses its cultural impact...with the kind of verve, insight and elegance that would have had Ross [the magazine’s first editor and founder] dancing a jig of delight. It is, furthermore, the most comprehensive and authoritative history of The New Yorker yet to appear.” Washington Post reviewer Marc Smirnoff wrote that “it’s a pleasure to read such a well-researched history…. About Town is a lively exploration– deeply researched, deeply thought out….” Yagoda has given a lecture at the New York City Public Library, been interviewed for programs on Great Britain’s BBC and has appeared on The Charlie Rose Show on PBS. The book also has appeared on Newsday’s nonfiction bestseller list. –Sue Moncure Authors plan dual lecture, signing UD English Professors Ben Yagoda and McKay Jenkins will hold a dual lecture, book signing and reception on Thursday, March 23. The event, free and open to the public, will be held from 4-6 p.m. in Room 127 Memorial Hall. Yagoda will speak about his newest book About Town: The New Yorker & The World It Made. Jenkins will talk about his latest book, White Death: Tragedy & Heroism in an Avalanche Zone. Slide shows and commentary will be presented, followed by a question and answer session. The reception and book signing will be held after the lectures in the dome of Memorial Hall. Both books will be available for purchase. For more information, call 831-3078.