Cast of Characters
Page 39
9 “The town was strangely quiet”: E. B. White, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, March 11, 1933.
9 “White’s prose had almost nothing”: WG, “E. B. White,” Book-of-the-Month Club News, January 1949.
9 “The Russians, we understand”: EBW, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, October 26, 1957.
10 out of “panic”: KSW to William Maxwell, n.d., “April.”
10 “the party was over”: Bruccoli, O’Hara Concern, p. 181.
10 “Helen Morgan’s singing belonged”: WG, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, October 18, 1941.
11 “The New Yorker, like New York itself”: Joseph Epstein, “There at the New Yorker,” Weekly Standard, December 12, 2011.
11 “geniuses”: Charles Morton, “A Try for The New Yorker,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1963; Morton, “Brief Interlude at The New Yorker,” Atlantic Monthly, May 1963; Kunkel, Genius in Disguise, p. 186.
11 “I’ve just been to dinner”: Allen Churchill, “Harold Ross: Editor of The New Yorker,” Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan, May 1948.
11 “trio about whom”: JT, Years with Ross, p. 18.
12 “I can’t imagine”: EBW, interview by George Plimpton and Frank H. Crowther, “The Art of the Essay No. 1,” Paris Review, Fall 1969.
CHAPTER 1: “A LUDICROUS PASTIME”
13 “There were so many different Rosses”: JT, Years with Ross, p. 13.
13 “warm and personal”: Ibid., p. 221.
13 “a general tenor”: Wilson, Sixties: Last Journal, p. 499.
13 “a kind person”: Geoffrey T. Hellman, talk at Grolier Club, May 14, 1975.
13 “found it hard”: Liebling, Most of Liebling, p. 321.
13 “a vitally intelligent man”: Grant, Ross, New Yorker, and Me, p. 10.
13 “the most uncompromising lout”: Cort, Social Astonishments, p. 196.
13 “I am frequently”: HWR to JOH, September 24, 1947.
14 “The New Yorker is pure accident”: HWR to George Jean Nathan, December 27, 1949.
14 “God damn it”: Ingersoll, Point of Departure, p. 191.
15 “annoying or comic”: Edmund Wilson to JT, March 22, 1958.
15 “Ross had an unquenchable”: Kahn, Sentimental Journal, p. 59.
15 “If I stayed anywhere”: Charles Morton, “A Try for The New Yorker,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1963.
15 “I have never been”: Gill, Here at New Yorker, pp. 191–92.
16 “liked the idea”: Kramer, Ross and New Yorker, p. 29.
17 “more in contempt”: EBW, notes, n.d., courtesy Cornell University; emphasis in the original.
18 Initially convinced: Kramer, Ross and New Yorker, p. 55.
18 Fleischmann would over the first three years: Kunkel, Genius in Disguise, p. 211.
18 Reportedly, within just a couple of years: Gill, Here at New Yorker, p. 186.
19 “undeniable respectability”: WG, “J’Accuse Les États-Unis,” TNY, February 1, 1947.
19 “The Gibbses were always boys”: WG to Nancy Hale, n.d., ca. 1931–32, mentioned in connection with Mosher rejection of Hale’s short story “Imagination.”
20 “I spent considerable segments”: Gibbs, More in Sorrow, p. viii.
20 “went bad”: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, June 29, 2007.
20 a city so heavy with industry: Sarah Smith, interview by author, August 3, 2007.
21 “cut too close”: Gelb, City Room, p. 441.
21 “not industrious” and “erratic”: J. D. Warnock, Hill School report card, December 13, 1916.
21 17½ out of a possible: WG, jacket copy for WG, Bird Life at the Pole.
21 “It proved substantially impossible”: WG, More in Sorrow, p. ix
21 “His particular activities”: Headmaster Dwight Meigs (probable author) to George Gibbs, June 26, 1919.
21 “beyond question”: WG, “The Diamond Gardenia” (Part I), TNY, November 20, 1937.
22 “I got fed up”: Richard B. Gehman, “The Great Dissenter,” Theatre Arts, March 1949.
22 “morosely designing”: WG, Bird Life at the Pole, jacket copy.
23 “a pretty comic kind of railroad”: WG, stage description from his unproduced play Sarasota Special.
23 “utterly wasted”: “There Was No Other,” Newsweek, August 25, 1958.
23 “It seemed to her,” etc.: WG, “How I Became a Writer,” Fire Islander, July 13, 1956.
23 seventy dollars a week: Richard B. Gehman, “The Great Dissenter,” Theatre Arts, March 1949.
23 “dedicated to the social activities”: WG, “The Huntress,” TNY, August 3, 1935.
24 “A week in bed”: WG, “A Little Murder Now and Then,” North Hempstead Record, January 12, 1927.
25 “one of America’s most distinguished”: WG (anon.), “Head of New Yorker Ran Country Paper,” North Hempstead Record, August 17, 1927.
25 a huge Ku Klux Klan rally: WG (anon.), “Blazing Cross, Fiery Talk, at Freeport,” Nassau Daily Star, August 22, 1927.
25 “told Ross he better hire me”: WG to EBW, n.d.
26 “I don’t give a damn”: WG, Season and Other Pleasures, p. vii.
26 “lousy the first year or two”: John R. Wiggins, “E. B. White Boxes His Compass,” Ellsworth American, October 26, 1966.
26 “You don’t want to read that stuff”: Dan Pinck, “Paging Mr. Ross: Old Days at ‘The New Yorker,’ ” Encounter, June 1987.
27 “great path-finder”: HWR to KSW, early 1940s.
27 “If an unhappy childhood”: EBW, Letters, rev. ed., p. 1.
28 “wrote for the sake of writing”: Elledge, White: A Biography, p. 55.
28 “Strunk’s parvum opus”: EBW, “Letter from the East,” TNY, July 27, 1957.
29 “When three or more facts”: EBW to HWR, May 2, 1946.
29 “Writing is a secret vice”: EBW to KSW, May 31, 1937.
29 “Success seems to be imminent”: EBW to Alice Burchfield, August 25, 1922.
29 “Capturing a thought”: EBW, “Personal Column,” Seattle Times, March 31, 1923.
30 “Mrs. Vander Regibilt”: EBW, “The Vernal Account,” TNY, April 18, 1925.
30 “Here is one commuter”: EBW, “Defense of the Bronx River,” TNY, May 9, 1925.
30 “In Which the Author”: EBW, “Child’s Play,” TNY, December 26, 1925.
30 “I discovered a long time ago”: EBW to Stanley White, January 1929.
31 “More than any other editor”: William Shawn, “Katharine Sergeant White,” TNY, August 1, 1977.
31 “Ross, though something of a genius”: EBW, interview by George Plimpton and Frank H. Crowther, “The Art of the Essay No. 1,” Paris Review, Fall 1969.
32 “the rich men’s town,” etc.: Davis, Onward and Upward, various pages.
32 “I was the youngest”: KSW, “Books: Children’s Books: Between the Dark and the Daylight,” TNY, December 7, 1946.
33 “I have and always have had”: Davis, Onward and Upward, p. 49.
34 “GENT’s laundry taken home”: EBW, Newsbreak, TNY, September 21, 1929.
34 “Quite well aware”: EBW, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, February 26, 1927.
34 “struck the shining note”: JT, “E.B.W.,” Saturday Review, October 15, 1938.
34 “Until I learned”: JT to Frank Gibney, October 31, 1956.
34 “the size of a hall bedroom,” etc.: EBW, “James Thurber,” TNY, November 11, 1961.
35 “My father was not a machine man”: JT, “Gentleman from Indiana,” TNY, June 9, 1951.
35 “I owe practically everything”: Henry Brandon, “Everybody Is Getting Serious,” New Republic, May 26, 1958.
36 “a studious and sometimes”: Bernstein, Thurber: A Biography, p. 29.
36 “I would put my eye” and “You are the main trouble”: JT, “My Life and Hard Times—VII,” TNY, September 23, 1933.
36 “City of Light and occasional Darkness”: JT, “The First Time I Saw Paris,” Holiday, April 1957.
37 “My anx
iety dreams”: Robert Vincent, “Always a Newspaper Man,” Columbus Dispatch Magazine, December 14, 1959.
37 “By the way”: JT to John Scott Mabon, March 16, 1946.
37 “I stopped off for a minute”: JT, interview by Joseph Mitchell, New York World-Telegram, 1934, cited in Kinney, Thurber Life and Times, p. 310.
38 “must have a rejection machine”: Thurber, Years With Ross, p. 33.
38 about a nondescript man: JT, “An American Romance,” TNY, March 5, 1927.
38 “I knew Ross was looking”: Bernstein, Thurber: A Biography, p. 159.
38 “You’ve been writing”: JT, Years with Ross, pp. 16–17.
38 “visceral abhorrence”: Yagoda, About Town, p. 53.
CHAPTER 2: “INFATUATION WITH PINHEADS”
39 “Ross gave us all a curious sense”: EBW in Newsweek, ca. February 1960.
39 “was by no means”: JT, Years with Ross, p. 71.
39 “The cast of characters”: EBW, Letters, rev. ed., p. 71.
40 “an absolute infatuation”: WG to JT, August 12, 1957.
40 Ross’s first: Kramer, Ross and New Yorker, p. 75.
40 “I won’t be back”: WG to JT, “Monday,” summer of 1957 or 1958.
40 “You can’t fire me”: Ibid.
40 “I am firing you”: Hoopes, Ingersoll: A Biography, p. 149.
40 “I got a sad letter”: Pemberton, Portrait of Murdock, pp. 28–29.
40 Pemberton said: Pemberton, Portrait of Murdock, p. 29.
40 “the worst copy we get”: KSW memo to James M. Cain, n.d., 1933.
40 “[H]e used to write”: WG to JT, “Monday,” summer of 1957 or 1958.
41 “Comma King”: Jon Michaud, “Who Was Hobie Weekes?” TheNewYorker.com, May 3, 2012.
41 “an incandescent liberal”: Brendan Gill, “Hobart G. Weekes,” TNY, February 29, 1978.
41 rubicund: Brendan Gill, “Hobart G. Weekes: An Appreciation,” Princeton University Library Chronicle, Autumn 1988.
41 jolly-faced: Frank Modell, interview by author, July 22, 2006.
41 a surprised O: Garrison Keillor, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, March 11, 1991.
41 Actually, it was generally understood: Nathaniel Benchley to author, September 24, 2009.
41 that rose almost to his armpits: Keillor, “Notes and Comment.”
41 “like a cross”: Rogers E. M. Whitaker obituary, New York Times, May 12, 1981.
41 “a rolling sneeze” and “a little slice of selfishness”: Landon Y. Jones, “Alumni Profile: Rogers E. M. Whitaker ‘22,” Princeton Alumni Weekly, December 8, 1975.
42 “gentle, venomous, red-eyed”: Gill, Here at New Yorker, p. 120.
42 “If you don’t like us”: Keillor, “Notes and Comment.”
42 “One Easter”: Parton, Journey Through a Lighted Room, p. 59.
42 “a beef-eating Englishman”: Allen Churchill, “Harold Ross: Editor of The New Yorker,” Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan, May 1948.
42 “Facts were sacred”: Brendan Gill, “Frederick Packard,” TNY, November 25, 1974.
42 “The Penna Wine Company”: Frederick Packard and Geoffrey Hellman, “Incidental Intelligence,” TNY, November 24, 1951.
42 “Solar pawnbrokers”: Packard, “Incidental Intelligence,” TNY, June 5, 1954.
42 “If for any reason”: Packard, “Incidental Intelligence,” TNY, August 4, 1956.
43 “The pavés”: Packard, “I Left My Haine in Arcachon Beside La Mer,” TNY, June 23, 1956.
43 “He wasn’t funny at all”: Frank Modell, interview by author, July 22, 2006.
43 “delightful deviant”: Murphy, Palleau-Papin, and Thacker, eds., Cather: Writer’s Worlds, p. 334.
43 “Newspaper man,” etc.: John Mosher entry in Charles W. Lester, ed., Williams 1914, courtesy Williams College.
44 “an editor whose prejudices” and “I must get back”: JT, Years with Ross, p. 33.
44 “working in complete silence”: Charles Morton, “Brief Interlude at The New Yorker,” Atlantic Monthly, May 1963.
44 “Jesus, what a review”: Howard Dietz to John Mosher, May 22, 1940.
45 “that God damned old woman”: HWR to Robert Benchley, August 24, 1937.
45 “in which he explained”: WG to JT, “Monday,” summer of 1957 or 1958.
45 “Mr. Ross usually showed up”: Dan Pinck, “Paging Mr. Ross: Old Days at ‘The New Yorker,’ ” Encounter, June 1987.
46 “piercing blue eyes,” etc.: Groth, Receptionist, p. 2.; Daise Terry obituary, New York Times, August 23, 1973; Bakewell, American Red Cross in Italy, p. 244.
46 “short, fierce, dignified” and “Never say hello”: James Stevenson, “The New Yorker Confidential,” New York Times, January 4, 2011.
46 “She was not popular”: KSW notes, courtesy Bryn Mawr College.
47 sixty to seventy-five hours: KSW to HWR and Hawley Truax, December 29, 1944.
47 “maid-of-all-work”: EBW to Cass Canfield, November 14, 1938.
47 “I have asked”: EBW to Daise Terry, n.d., 1939.
47 “God only knows”: JT to Terry, n.d., 1936.
47 “Please lose this”: WG to Terry, October 3, 1935.
47 “Miss Terry perhaps”: WG to KSW, ca. 1937.
47 she once divested: WG to JT August 12, 1957.
48 “Petition to Miss Terry”: staff memo to Daise Terry, 1934
48 “dehumanized figure”: JT, Years with Ross, pp. 7–8.
48 “It was I who invented”: Ralph Ingersoll to JT, August 1, 1959.
49 “Ingersoll was a great man”: WG, “A Very Active Type Man” (Part I), TNY, May 2, 1942.
49 “I was the mother”: Hoopes, Ingersoll: A Biography, p. 68.
49 “Jesus emeritus”: Ibid., p. 74.
49 “manifold, peculiar, and perhaps,” etc.: WG, “James Thurber,” Book-of-the-Month Club News, February 1945.
49 “Every evening”: WG to JT, “Monday,” summer of 1957 or 1958.
50 “It was a lively, stormy time”: KSW notes, courtesy Bryn Mawr College.
50 “In this otherwise courteous man,” etc.: Hoopes, Cain, pp. 203 and 213–14.
51 “You seem to be under”: James M. Cain to Geoffrey T. Hellman, April 21, 1931.
51 “To sum up this whole”: Hellman to Cain, April 22, 1931.
51 “Let us get this thing”: Cain to Hellman, April 23, 1931.
52 poison pen correspondence: Hellman to Cain, April 24, 1931.
52 “On the whole”: Cain to WG, August 13, 1934.
52 “Honest to Jesus”: Joel Sayre to KSW, n.d., 1933.
53 “exactly as it should,” etc.: StCM to JT, April 2, 1958.
53 “He was Mr. Congeniality”: Botsford, Life of Privilege, Mostly, p. 225.
53 “An awful lot”: Edward Newhouse, interview by Christina Carver Pratt, January 14, 1997.
54 “rankly paradoxical,’ ” etc.: McKelway’s background can be found in StCM, “The Cockatoo,” TNY, October 19, 1957; StCM, “Sam Rosen and the Presbyterians,” TNY, September 23, 1963; StCM, “Child Labor and the Presbyterians,” TNY, October 12, 1963; and StCM, “The Presbyterian Captives,” TNY, April 12, 1969.
55 was paid his salary in gold: StCM, “Quong,” TNY, May 5, 1962.
55 “graceful muckraking”: Sinclair, Will the Real Sinclair Please Sit Down, p. 54.
56 “Not a single measure,” etc.: Waugh, Bangkok, pp. 160–73.
56 “valued gorilla,” etc.: Walker, City Editor, pp. 278–80.
57 “In a very short time”: StCM to JT, April 2, 1958.
CHAPTER 3: “BOY, DO I LIKE TO HANDLE AUTHORS!”
58 “What is the purpose”: Merritt Nelson to TNY, December 19, 1932.
58 “We haven’t any purpose”: Anonymous to Nelson, n.d.
58 “In the minds of Harold”: The New Yorker: An Outline of its History (company publication), 1946, p. 1.
59 “An awful lot”: John Crosby, New York Herald Tribune, December 12, 1951.
59 �
��I can’t remember”: Ingersoll, Point of Departure, p. 203.
59 “silver and crystal”: JT, “E.B.W.,” Saturday Review, October 15, 1938.
59 “We notice that the minute”: EBW, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, June 24, 1933.
60 “each as guilty”: Dale Kramer and George R. Clark, “Harold Ross and The New Yorker: A Landscape with Figures,” Harper’s, April 1943.
60 “since his mind worked”: Kinney, Thurber Life and Times, pp. 417–18.
60 “I’m sure that Andy”: Robert M. Coates, “New Yorker Days,” Authors Guild Bulletin, December 1961.
61 “ ‘It’s a form of escape’ ”: JT, “A Box to Hide In,” TNY, January 24, 1931.
61 “brought mail in”: Joel Sayre, “John O’Hara Early On,” notes in Joel Sayre Papers, NYPL.
61 “the foibles”: New Yorker: Outline of Its History, p. 2.
61 “a small red man”: WG, “Mars,” TNY, June 23, 1934.
61 fiendish cigarette consumption: WG, “Wit’s End,” TNY, October 21, 1933.
61 “touch is so light”: The New Yorker: Editorial Policy and Purpose (company publication), 1946, p. 9.
62 “Ross is usually”: Dale Kramer and George R. Clark, “Ross and New Yorker: A Landscape with Figures,” Harper’s, April 1943.
62 “a prejudice against writing”: KSW to Will Cuppy, March 3, 1933.
63 “Sorry, this isn’t”: Harriet Walden New Yorker Papers, NYPL.
63 “One of the most”: JT to EBW, April 16, 1956.
63 “just to catch”: KSW to Harrison Kinney, March 23, 1973.
63 “lunatic,” etc.: WG to StCM, n.d.
64 “Bad writing was an affront”: Botsford, Life of Privilege, Mostly, pp. 174–75.
64 Gibbs even corrected: Elizabeth “Tish” Collins, interview by author, June 9, 2007.
64 He would revise his own: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, November 22, 2005.
64 “An average Profile-writer”: Harriman, Take Them Up Tenderly, pp. xii–xiii.
64 there were 147 numbered queries: Dale Kramer and George R. Clark, “Ross and New Yorker: A Landscape with Figures,” Harper’s, April 1943.
65 “Good enough subject”: WG to HWR, n.d., 1935.
66 If a piece was particularly: Gelb, City Room, p. 195.
66 “Being slow in paying”: WG to W. E. Farbstein, March 10, 1930.
66 “not beautiful in the classic sense”: Harriman, Blessed Are the Debonair, pp. 212–14.