A New York life : of friends and others

In one of the essays collected here, Brendan Gill identifies as one of the ordinary, workaday inhabitants of his city -- but the moment passes. Elsewhere he is at pains to let us know that he is a Bones man, that is to say a member of Harvard's exclusive and secretive Skull and Bones club (of which

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George W Bush is probably the least distinguished member), and the book could be described (meanly) as an extended exercise in name-dropping: it's a collection of portraits, ranging from intimate accounts of friendship to smooth journalistic 'profiles', of distinguished writers, architects, film stars, patrons of the arts, and other luminaries. He quotes the famous exchange between F Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway -- 'The rich are different from other people.' 'Yes, they have more money.' -- and laments that Hemingway's clever riposte blocked what would have been an interesting line of enquiry. This book isn't about the very rich, but nor is it about struggling working class artists. Some of his subjects came from poor immigrant backgrounds, but almost all are, or were, part of what he calls 'society'; there are a number of Jews, Gay men and Lesbians, and even at least one Black woman (Ellen Stewart of New York's LaMama). But this definitely isn't the New York of Spike Jones or Andy Warhol.

Brendan Gill wrote the first words of the book when he came home from the celebration held in lieu of a funeral for Charles Addams (cartoonist for The New Yorker -- the TV show inspired by his cartoons isn't mentioned). In many of the pieces there's a feeling that he wants to set the record straight -- mostly to give credit where people have been underestimated or misrepresented, but occasionally (as for Joseph Campbell and perhaps Brendan Behan) to suggest that their reputations weren't entirely deserved. The tone is generally elegiac: in his seventies at the time of writing, he sets out to capture the feel of a generation that has passed or is passing, of people who have created fine things (any number of artists, writers and architects), lived admirable lives (Eleanor Roosevelt), or just been interesting (like Nigel Nicholson, son of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson), made their marks as film stars (Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton). Some of the stories, especially to my mind the one on Dorothy Parker, are heartbreaking. Among the portraits one finds mini-essays, on the institution of gentleman's clubs in New York, for example; and there are plenty of glimpses of famous people not the subject of portraits: among them foul-mouthed Tallulah Bankhead, genial Charles Addams and egotistical Frank Lloyd Wright. The whole is a diverting read, an elegant, often very funny, personal glimpse of a world that's generally hidden behind a wall of dignity or journalese.

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