Read Online The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight: Wolfe, Thompson, Didion, Capote, and the New Journalism Revolution by Marc Weingarten - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Marc Weingarten
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Biography & Autobiography, Literary Criticism, American, Language Arts & Disciplines, Journalism, Mailer; Norman - Criticism and Interpretation, Wolfe; Tom - Criticism and Interpretation, Didion; Joan - Criticism and Interpretation, American Prose Literature - 20th Century - History and Criticism, Capote; Truman - Criticism and Interpretation, Reportage Literature; American - History and Criticism, Journalism - United States - History - 20th Century
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could certainly plunk down two quarters for his magazine.
But Ernest Hemingway? How would they attract writers of his stature to the magazine? As it turned out, Gingrich, an avid book collector, had been engaged in a correspondence with Hemingway for some time and had even sent him a few items of clothing. Now Gingrich had an offer of work for him, and Hemingway agreed. He would write pieces on the sporting life for
Esquire
at a rate that was agreeable to both parties.
Other writers followed in short order: John Dos Passos, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Smart and Gingrich had positioned
Esquire
as a must-read for the male urban sophisticate. But
Esquire
was also, in Gingrich’s words, all about “the new leisure,” and that meant male fashion spreads and well-crafted lifestyle pieces about fly fishing and automobiles. It was a golden formula; by the end of 1937,
Esquire’s
circulation had risen to 675,000. When paper rationing hit the magazine publishing business during World War II, Gingrich figured out a novel way to get the War Production Board to give
Esquire
bigger paper allotments: print pinups for the boys on the front.
Esquire
thus became known as a literate skin magazine, but Gingrich and Smart didn’t care as long as circulation figures continued to escalate.
Esquire’s
winning mix of highbrow fiction, breezy reportage, and cheesecake collapsed after the war, when Gingrich retired at forty and handed over the editorial duties to Smart, who, despite his keen business acumen, was never the best judge of good writing. Under the clunky stewardship of new editor Frederic A. Birmingham, the magazine soon devolved into an unfocused mélange of breathless “amazing tales” pulp and dime-store detective fiction. Smart needed an infusion of new energy, and he convinced Gingrich, who had returned from temporary exile in Switzerland to edit a magazine called
Flair
one floor above
Esquire’s
offices at 488 Madison Avenue, to return to
Esquire
on any terms he wanted. That meant total creative autonomy, the chance toonce again mold the magazine in his image as both publisher and editor. Gingrich agreed, and the magazine was back on track.
Dave Smart died three months after hiring back Gingrich, leaving
Esquire’s
assets in the hands of his youngest surviving brother, John. Without Dave Smart’s steady hand, John, a publishing neophyte, wisely deferred to
Esquire
veteran Abe Blinder to run the magazine’s financial affairs. Fritz Bamberger, an Australian with a doctorate in philosophy, would serve as editorial consultant, installing a research department and a thorough fact-checking system.
Gingrich cleaned house in a hurry. He promoted Henry Wolf, an Austrian who had studied with legendary teacher and
Harper’s Bazaar
art director Alexey Brodovitch, to create a cleaner and bolder new look for the magazine. Gingrich also restored some of the magazine’s literary luster by bringing writers such as Hemingway back into the fold. He fired Birmingham and went on a hiring binge. What was needed, in Gingrich’s view, was young men with unlimited creative energy who could recruit new voices and imprint their vision on the magazine while still remaining true to the spirit of what he had built. He found three perfect candidates for the job, the trio that Gingrich referred to as “the Young Turks”: Clay Felker, Ralph Ginzburg, and Harold Hayes.
Harold Hayes’s and Clay Felker’s paths had first crossed years earlier, during their tenures as ambitious young college newspaper editors. In 1950 Felker organized a seminar on journalism at the Washington Hotel, near Duke’s campus, in Durham, North Carolina. Among those who showed up was Hayes, who made the two-hour trip from Wake Forest University to rub shoulders with the panel that Felker had assembled, which included the editor of the New York
Daily News
. But according to Felker, the two regarded each other skeptically, and barely talked. It was to set the
But Ernest Hemingway? How would they attract writers of his stature to the magazine? As it turned out, Gingrich, an avid book collector, had been engaged in a correspondence with Hemingway for some time and had even sent him a few items of clothing. Now Gingrich had an offer of work for him, and Hemingway agreed. He would write pieces on the sporting life for
Esquire
at a rate that was agreeable to both parties.
Other writers followed in short order: John Dos Passos, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Smart and Gingrich had positioned
Esquire
as a must-read for the male urban sophisticate. But
Esquire
was also, in Gingrich’s words, all about “the new leisure,” and that meant male fashion spreads and well-crafted lifestyle pieces about fly fishing and automobiles. It was a golden formula; by the end of 1937,
Esquire’s
circulation had risen to 675,000. When paper rationing hit the magazine publishing business during World War II, Gingrich figured out a novel way to get the War Production Board to give
Esquire
bigger paper allotments: print pinups for the boys on the front.
Esquire
thus became known as a literate skin magazine, but Gingrich and Smart didn’t care as long as circulation figures continued to escalate.
Esquire’s
winning mix of highbrow fiction, breezy reportage, and cheesecake collapsed after the war, when Gingrich retired at forty and handed over the editorial duties to Smart, who, despite his keen business acumen, was never the best judge of good writing. Under the clunky stewardship of new editor Frederic A. Birmingham, the magazine soon devolved into an unfocused mélange of breathless “amazing tales” pulp and dime-store detective fiction. Smart needed an infusion of new energy, and he convinced Gingrich, who had returned from temporary exile in Switzerland to edit a magazine called
Flair
one floor above
Esquire’s
offices at 488 Madison Avenue, to return to
Esquire
on any terms he wanted. That meant total creative autonomy, the chance toonce again mold the magazine in his image as both publisher and editor. Gingrich agreed, and the magazine was back on track.
Dave Smart died three months after hiring back Gingrich, leaving
Esquire’s
assets in the hands of his youngest surviving brother, John. Without Dave Smart’s steady hand, John, a publishing neophyte, wisely deferred to
Esquire
veteran Abe Blinder to run the magazine’s financial affairs. Fritz Bamberger, an Australian with a doctorate in philosophy, would serve as editorial consultant, installing a research department and a thorough fact-checking system.
Gingrich cleaned house in a hurry. He promoted Henry Wolf, an Austrian who had studied with legendary teacher and
Harper’s Bazaar
art director Alexey Brodovitch, to create a cleaner and bolder new look for the magazine. Gingrich also restored some of the magazine’s literary luster by bringing writers such as Hemingway back into the fold. He fired Birmingham and went on a hiring binge. What was needed, in Gingrich’s view, was young men with unlimited creative energy who could recruit new voices and imprint their vision on the magazine while still remaining true to the spirit of what he had built. He found three perfect candidates for the job, the trio that Gingrich referred to as “the Young Turks”: Clay Felker, Ralph Ginzburg, and Harold Hayes.
Harold Hayes’s and Clay Felker’s paths had first crossed years earlier, during their tenures as ambitious young college newspaper editors. In 1950 Felker organized a seminar on journalism at the Washington Hotel, near Duke’s campus, in Durham, North Carolina. Among those who showed up was Hayes, who made the two-hour trip from Wake Forest University to rub shoulders with the panel that Felker had assembled, which included the editor of the New York
Daily News
. But according to Felker, the two regarded each other skeptically, and barely talked. It was to set the
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