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Brendan Gill, Here at the New Yorker (Random House, 1975) Reissued by DaCapo Press in 1997 Gill was a fly on the wall for 40 of the first 50 years of the New Yorker, where he arrived as a 21-year-old ingénue in 1936 and stayed until well beyond the publication of this irreverent memoir. In Here at the New Yorker, the most widely publicized manifestation of the magazine's 50th Anniversary, Gill teases at the rumors from the magazine's hallways and whispers of what went on there behind closed office doors. When the book came out in 1975, readers knew little of the inner workings of the magazine; Gill provides a lively, heartfelt recollection of those details. Here at the New Yorker is not an expose, but rather an anecdotal wandering through the memories of someone who grew up with and within the New Yorker. With a skill for bringing figures to life on the page, Gill describes the characters who occupied the magazine's masthead and the profound moments of the magazine's five decades in print. He writes, "It is in the nature of the New Yorker to be as topical as possible, on a level that is often small in scale and playful in intention." This is precisely how Gill succeeds in his punching out his New Yorker anecdotes in this volume; his pride in the magazine is evident at nearly every turn of phrase. Here at the New Yorker was a Book of the Month Club alternate selection. Brendan Gill wrote for the New Yorker under four of the magazine's editors and published 15 books before his sudden death in 1997, shortly after writing a new introduction for Here at the New Yorker. Upon his death, one New Yorker writer wrote, "Next to him your life couldn't help looking like something that hadn't had its morning coffee yet." From The Washington Post: "Over the years a great deal has been written about the New Yorker, far too much of it from within: self-celebratory and self-congratulatory if not outright smug, the most notable (and notorious) example being Brendan Gill's hugely successful "Here at the New Yorker," which more than any other book or article established and institutionalized the myth of the magazine as a quaint and cozy club inhabited by querulous but lovable eccentrics laboring in the cause of literature and the higher journalism. There was never much truth to this myth." From The Boston Globe: "Gill catalogs a rogues' gallery of writers and editors 'in their bleak little ill-painted cells'.... Gill makes it clear that every editor worth his Scotch stashed bottles of it." MORE: PBS interview with Brendan Gill New York Review of Books |
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