Nicky Haslam
Park Avenue Prince
Condé Nast: The Man and His Empire
By Susan Ronald
St Martin’s Press 436pp £25 order from our bookshop
In New York, in the spring of 1963, I was interviewed by Alexander Liberman, the all-powerful artistic director of the Condé Nast publishing house, with a view to being employed at American Vogue. Somehow I passed his eagle-eyed test. He told me I was to go upstairs and see Miss Campbell. ‘You will start in ten days’ time,’ she said. Meanwhile she’d arrange, swiftly, the essential green card.
I tell you this because Miss Campbell was the very same Mary Campbell who, twenty years earlier, had been at the bedside of the dying Condé Nast. It was she who had handed his last letter to Iva Patcévitch, naming him president of a then-fading empire. This was the same ‘Mr Pat’ who, in those ten days’ time, would be my ultimate boss.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'This book takes in a lot of territory, all solidly researched and footnoted. But dry? Fuhgeddaboutit.'
Patricia T O'Conner on E J White's 'You Talkin' To Me? The Unruly History of New York English'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/tawk-of-the-town
'The identification of a mighty force sparkling intermittently seems to me to constitute the finest and most consistent poetic achievement of Goudie’s book.'
Candia McWilliam on @lachlangoudie's 'The Story of Scottish Art'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/all-that-glisters
Though 'the hotel had a reputation as the area’s best, its staff were not used to looking after world leaders, so the arrival of Cuba’s new strongman, Fidel Castro, came as something of a shock.'
@dcsandbrook on @simonhallwriter's 'Ten Days in Harlem'.
http://ow.ly/I63850Bvs10