She tells how they bought an apartment only blocks from the Upper East Side flat he shared with his wife and two sons and how Shawn, supposedly with his wife's knowledge, installed a private phone line in the family apartment, just so he and Ross could converse whenever they wanted. That, to me, is the great revelation of Here but Not Here, although the news that she had a long-term liaison with Shawn, who was supposedly a devoted family man, elicited much pre-publication notice.Īnd yes, Ross goes into their affair in great detail. But Ross discloses that Shawn hated being editor, that he did so out of obligation to the writers and to the magazine, and what he really wanted to do was write poetry. Early in her memoir, Here but Not Here, she describes him as "a tormented man,'" and by the end of the book the reader will conclude that she is understating her case.īoth memoirs reinforce the common perception of Shawn that he was an unobtrusive, ultra-sensitive and extremely hard-working editor, unflaggingly devoted to his corps of writers (who in turn adored him) and to the magazine. Mehta's and Ross' books are mostly loving portraits, and will reinforce the notion that he was a superior editor, but the reader will conclude that he was a most peculiar man. What's ironic is that Shawn was very private, and indeed always maintained that the New Yorker would not feature anybody who did not wish to be interviewed. Shawn hired Ross in 1945, edited some of her most memorable pieces _ including the famous series on the making of the film The Red Badge of Courage _ and, as she reveals in her memoir, was her lover for 40 years. Mehta worked with Shawn for more than 25 years, until new management forced Shawn to resign. The Age of Shawn at the New Yorker is recalled in two recently published memoirs by Ved Mehta and Lillian Ross. That editor was William Shawn, who held the position from 1952 to 1987, and who, as much as anyone else, helped shape the magazine's identity as a place where intellectual curiosity was the chief driving force _ not Tina Brown's famous "buzz.'"
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