{"product_id":"2940169866162","title":"Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E. B. White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age of the New Yorker","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe professional and personal lives of the pioneers of an enduring magazine, the \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom its birth in 1925 to the early days of the Cold War, the\u003ci\u003e New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e slowly but surely took hold as the country¿s most prestigious, entertaining, and informative general-interest periodical. In \u003ci\u003eCast of Characters\u003c\/i\u003e, Thomas Vinciguerra paints a portrait of the magazine¿s cadre of charming, wisecracking, driven, troubled, and brilliant, writers and editors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe introduces us to Wolcott Gibbs, theater critic, all-around wit, and author of an infamous 1936 parody of \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e magazine. We meet the demanding and eccentric founding editor Harold Ross, who would routinely tell his underlings, ¿I¿m firing you because you are not a genius,¿ and who once mailed a pair of his underwear to Walter Winchell, who had accused him of preferring to go bare-bottomed under his slacks. Joining the cast are the mercurial, blind James Thurber, a brilliant cartoonist and wildly inventive fabulist; and the enigmatic E. B. White¿an incomparable prose stylist and Ross¿ favorite son¿who married the\u003ci\u003e New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e¿s formidable fiction editor, Katharine Angell. Then there is the dashing St. Clair McKelway, who was married five times and claimed to have no fewer than twelve personalities, but was nonetheless a superb reporter and managing editor alike. Many of these characters became legends in their own right, but Vinciguerra also shows how, as a group, the\u003ci\u003e New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e¿s inner circle brought forth a profound transformation in how life was perceived, interpreted, written about, and published in America.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCast of Characters\u003c\/i\u003e may be the most revealing-and entertaining-book yet about the unique personalities who built what Ross called not a magazine but a ¿movement.¿\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Blackstone Audio, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47104708083952,"sku":"2940169866162","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940169866162_p0.jpg?v=1769901931","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940169866162","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}