{"product_id":"cast-of-characters-wolcott-gibbs-e-b-white-james-thurber-and-the-golden-age-of-the-new-yorker-9780393353532","title":"Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E. B. White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age of the New Yorker","description":"\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\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e W. W. Norton \u0026amp; Company\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/18\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780393353532\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 480\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.85lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.10h x 5.50w x 1.20d","brand":"Thomas Vinciguerra","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44174017364149,"sku":"9780393353532","price":16.11,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_f0ae8a01-9df4-4b15-a804-d139eb732470.jpg?v=1716299960","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/cast-of-characters-wolcott-gibbs-e-b-white-james-thurber-and-the-golden-age-of-the-new-yorker-9780393353532","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}