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When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines
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About This Book
From the pages of Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter's memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American cultureWhen Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992, he knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. Not only was he confronted with a staff that he perceived to be loyal to the previous regime, but he arrived only a few years after launching Spy magazine, which gloried in skewering the celebrated and powerful—the very people Vanity Fair venerated. With curiosity, fearlessness, and a love of recent history and glamour that would come to define his storied career in magazines, Carter succeeded in endearing himself to his editors, contributors, and readers, as well as many of the faces that would come to appear in Vanity Fair's pages. He went on to run the magazine with overwhelming success for the next two and a half decades.Filled with colorful memories and intimate details, When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter's lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of the most talented editors in the business. Moving to New York from Canada, he worked at Time, Life, The New York Observer, and Spy, before catching the eye of Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse, who pulled him in to run Vanity Fair. In Newhouse he found an unwavering champion, a loyal proprietor who gave Carter the editorial and financial freedom to thrive. Annie Leibovitz's photographs would come to define the look of the magazine, as would the "New Establishment" and annual Hollywood issues. Carter further planted a flag in Los Angeles with the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party.With his inimitable voice and signature quip, he brings readers to lunches and dinners with the great and good of America, Britain, and Europe. He assembled one of the most formidable stables of writers and photographers under one roof, and here he re-creates in real time the steps he took to ensure Vanity Fair cemented its place as the epicenter of art, culture, business, and politics, even as digital media took hold. Charming, candid, and brimming with stories, When the Going Was Good perfectly captures the last golden age of print magazines from the inside out.
Reviews
"Fox, known to be a great ordering force, has helped turn Carter's extremely un-Richardsian life into a winsome book—brisk, bright, and full of well-told anecdotes about bold- and semi-boldface names—without straying from Carter's aloof and sometimes chilly sybaritism."
"Witty people doing anecdotal things ..."
"Judging from the amount of space he devotes to it, he seems to think that his greatest achievement was setting up the Vanity Fair Oscars party."
"He does not attempt to reconcile this comment with the fact that, being a varsity socializer, he appears to be out every night."
"An entertaining look back at a life in full."
"Carter's delight in the chaos, effort, stress, and exhilaration of his editorships generate the effervescence and depth of this enthusiastically detailed chronicle."
"It's certainly not Carter's fault that media went belly-up, but there is something slightly sleazy about this growing subgenre of memoirs by industry titans who held rarefied positions—of the kind that will likely never be known again by any working journalist—going out on top, then turning around and trading in wistfulness predicated on dearth, without even giving an honest accounting of how we got here, who won, and who lost."
"Light-shedding, self-effacing, and tastefully dishy."
"Carter seems to know how fortunate he was to ride the wave and thrive as a shot-caller back when that meant something more than it does today."
"He is a gossip at heart; casting an eye back on his life, he can't help but dish the dirt."
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