{"product_id":"9780393248746","title":"Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E. B. White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age of The New Yorker","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Exuberant . . . elegantly conjures an evocative group dynamic.” —Sam Roberts, \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom its birth in 1925 to the early days of the Cold War, \u003cem\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/em\u003e slowly but surely took hold as the country’s most prestigious, entertaining, and informative general-interest periodical. In \u003cem\u003eCast of Characters\u003c\/em\u003e, Thomas Vinciguerra paints a portrait of the magazine’s cadre of charming, wisecracking, driven, troubled, 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 \u003cem\u003eTime\u003c\/em\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's favorite son—who married \u003cem\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/em\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, \u003cem\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/em\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\u003cem\u003eCast of Characters\u003c\/em\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":"Norton, W. W. \u0026 Company, Inc.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47104272335088,"sku":"9780393248746","price":18.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780393248746_p0.jpg?v=1763697190","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780393248746","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}