If The Devil Wears Prada taught us anything, it's that Conde Nast can be an extremely unpleasant place to work. Of course, Lauren Weisberger tried to deny that the setting for her fashion magazine hell was Conde Nast at all--she did a bang-up job of changing names, and turning a lobby ficus into a potted palm. But we (and probably Anna Wintour's lawyers) knew the deal. However, Weisberger was constrained at all times by the Chick Lit Code: veil thinly, but veil like the dickens so nobody can sue you for a fictionalized memoir. Oprah would approve. In How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, Toby Young doesn't buy into that bullshit, mostly because he wants people to know that he worked for Vanity Fair, and wants it more than anything in the world. If you don't happen to know that he spent a few months on staff there, then his entire life is for naught. And so, much of the book is about his time at the magazine: his flukey invitation from Graydon Carter to be a contributing editor; his charmless alienation of the entire staff; and his wacky (and yet somehow still lame) attempts to get Vanity Fair to incorporate British-style humor in its glossy pages. Young adopts the outsider perspective right away, and fights hard to keep it. For example, he uses the motif of the Vanity Fair Oscar party in several places; ostensibly he's complaining about how he can't get in with his own name. Yet it's pretty clear that sneaking in and working hard to get himself banished is his raison d'etre, if not the raison de book deal. The whole book is like that. He solicits sympathy for the fact that he can't get ahead as a writer/socialite, but would probably be bored if he weren't snubbed and amusingly downtrodden. And he knows we'd be bored too. So he keeps plugging along, assuming that his personality is enough to carry everything.
And you know what? It kinda is. Enough writers do the self-pity, but not many do it with the kind of energy that keeps Charlie Brown heading to the football field every damn time. It probably doesn't hurt that Toby Young even looks rather Charlie Brown-esque. And the surprising elements do help make up for the narcissism. Graydon Carter could have been portrayed horribly, according to every other publishing memoir that ever included a difficult editor-in-chief. But Young gives him a pass while exploring the darker sides of their odd working relationship. Young saves the vitriol for a long diatribe about former New Yorker editrix Tina Brown, which is pretty hilarious in its depth and its lack of concern for the fact that she could easily have his testicles on a platter if she really wanted them.
The stuff that skews toward the publishing insider is what ultimately makes the book entertaining, given that half the people I know would give kidneys to have opportunities like Toby Young has had. I just doubt that any of us would have the chutzpah to screw it up so spectacularly and flaunt that fact. And there is plenty of useful information as well; where else would one find a list of words and terms banned from ever being used in Vanity Fair? (FYI: you will never see "plethora," "golfer," "fuck" (the verb), "funky," "weird," or any synonym for "said" in the pages of the magazine.)
Some of the more entertaining excerpts:
"When the party started winding down, I attached myself to a group of people heading over to Bowery Bar--here, at last, was my chance to get in. The group included the infamous Vanity Fair columnist George Wayne, a flamboyant, Jamaican homosexual. Among his many idiosyncracies, George has the celebrity's habit of always referring to himself in the third person. I'd never met a black homosexual before and, sitting next to him in the cab on the way to East 4th Street, I was slightly intimidated.
'So George,' I asked, trying to break the ice, 'how long have you been a hack?'
'A hack?' he replied in horror. 'G.W. is not a hack. He's a belletrist, darling. A FUCKING BELLETRIST!'
I decided to keep my trap shut after that."
"Conde Nast editors have developed a whole vocabulary to convey their bitchy, slightly camp worldview. An inadequately-decorated restaurant, for instance, is an 'airport lounge,' or--worse--a 'McDonald's,' while an overcrowded club or party is a 'rat fuck' or a 'cluster fuck.' A person who's less than drop-dead gorgeous is 'scary-looking,' and anyone who calls twice in one day, no matter how urgent their business, is a 'stalker.' It's as if they're celebrities having to contend with troublesome fans. The worst epithet that can be applied to anyone is that he or she is 'over.'"
2 comments:
If you ever compose a list of banned words, can you consider adding "belletrist?"
Toby Young sounds a little naive. He's actually surprised to learn that self-important people have higher standards of attractiveness or refer to others as if they're passe fads? And meeting his first gay black man is noteworthy? The wide-eyed innocence seems more indicative of his outsider status than any victimization. Could it be some weird British thing?
I think it's more of a Toby Young thing. A lot of the book is him trying to make sociological observations about Americans in general and New Yorkers in particular, like someone told him that he'd have to ground his book in something heavier than cocaine binges and fruitless ass-chasing.
The self-conscious "I'm not from here" structure never really disappears into the narrative, but the vigor with which he thrusts all his naive observations toward the reader does make it all a little easier to take.
No deal on "belletrist," sorry. I rather like it. But I do think we need a list of banned words/phrases. You know, just for everyday purposes.
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