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When the Going Was Good

An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

Author Graydon Carter On Tour
with James Fox On Tour
Hardcover
$32.00 US
| $42.00 CAN
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Press
On sale Mar 25, 2025 | 432 Pages | 9780593655900
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From the pages of Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter’s memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture

When Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992, he knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. Not only was he confronted with a staff that he perceived to be loyal to the previous regime, but he arrived only a few years after launching Spy magazine, which gloried in skewering the celebrated and powerful—the very people Vanity Fair venerated. With curiosity, fearlessness, and a love of recent history and glamour that would come to define his storied career in magazines, Carter succeeded in endearing himself to his editors, contributors, and readers, as well as many of the faces that would come to appear in Vanity Fair’s pages. He went on to run the magazine with overwhelming success for the next two and a half decades.

Filled with colorful memories and intimate details, When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter’s lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of the most talented editors in the business. Moving to New York from Canada, he worked at Time, Life, The New York Observer, and Spy, before catching the eye of Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse, who pulled him in to run Vanity Fair. In Newhouse he found an unwavering champion, a loyal proprietor who gave Carter the editorial and financial freedom to thrive. Annie Leibovitz’s photographs would come to define the look of the magazine, as would the “New Establishment” and annual Hollywood issues. Carter further planted a flag in Los Angeles with the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party.

With his inimitable voice and signature quip, he brings readers to lunches and dinners with the great and good of America, Britain, and Europe. He assembled one of the most formidable stables of writers and photographers under one roof, and here he re-creates in real time the steps he took to ensure Vanity Fair cemented its place as the epicenter of art, culture, business, and politics, even as digital media took hold. Charming, candid, and brimming with stories, When the Going Was Good perfectly captures the last golden age of print magazines from the inside out.
“I quickly and (mostly) happily consumed it anyway. The journalism stories and the character analysis, as Elizabeth Hardwick liked to call gossip, are first-rate.” —Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review

“Canadian journalist Graydon Carter learned the ropes at Time and Life before co-founding the magazine Spy. But he’s best known for his work as editor of Vanity Fair between 1992 and 2017, the period that dominates his breezy memoir. There’s Hollywood gossip, score-settling and tales from the era of limitless editorial budgets.” —Monocle

“Carter’s wry tone and hard-won insights make this a must-read for aspiring journalists and those who lived through the good old days of print magazines. It’s a blast.” —Publishers Weekly

“Carter chronicles the industry and its people with deep love and affection, and it’s a story of discovering one’s passion, persistence, and undeniably being in the right place at the right time . . . An engaging book for lovers of glossy magazines and the people who make them.” —Library Journal

“[A] rollicking memoir and heartfelt paean to the big, glossy, influential magazines of yore . . . Carter's zestful accounts of his editorial visions and their implementation are fascinating, as are his vivid profiles of writers, photographers, and Hollywood stars. Carter's delight in the chaos, effort, stress, and exhilaration of his editorships generate the effervescence and depth of this enthusiastically detailed chronicle.” —Booklist

Advance Praise:

“A page-turning, bighearted, self-knowing, anecdote-rich and often screechingly funny record of a life lived to the full. A great memoir by one of the great editors—and characters—of our time.” —Christopher Buckley

“A splendidly written and warmhearted handbook for how to live, for how to be a friend and a leader and a parent and a partner and a dining companion that gets invited back, and it's precisely the sort of book that makes one a better person after reading it. Everybody under the age of 40 should read this masterwork so that we might collectively bring back that golden age, and everybody over 40 should read it and summarily wave their handkerchiefs in admirable surrender.” —Lisa Taddeo

“A tour de force—informative, insightful, droll, and delightful. I am overwhelmed by When the Going Was Good.” —Gay Talese

“There is so much to savour in this enormously enjoyable memoir, but it’s the Vanity Fair chapters—an indispensable ‘how-to’ edit a magazine, host a party, curate a dinner, and inspire a legendary stable of writers—that form the centrepiece and highlight of this fascinating ride. You emerge from this enormously enjoyable memoir with the feeling of having just left an unforgettable party.” —Peter Morgan

“What a great read—but it had a downside. It served to remind me how unexciting, unremarkable, and uninteresting I am, especially compared to this Carter fellow, the charming, colorful, raconteur that he is. As Leon once said to me in a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm, ‘That mothafucka lived a life!” —Larry David
© Nikolai von Bismarck
Graydon Carter is the founder of Air Mail. Before this, he was a staff writer for both Time and Life. He cocreated Spy, edited The New York Observer, and for twenty-five years was the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair. He is also the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer of more than a dozen documentaries and one hit Broadway play. He and his wife live in Greenwich Village, not far from the Waverly Inn, and have five children. View titles by Graydon Carter

About

From the pages of Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter’s memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture

When Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992, he knew he faced an uphill battle—how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. Not only was he confronted with a staff that he perceived to be loyal to the previous regime, but he arrived only a few years after launching Spy magazine, which gloried in skewering the celebrated and powerful—the very people Vanity Fair venerated. With curiosity, fearlessness, and a love of recent history and glamour that would come to define his storied career in magazines, Carter succeeded in endearing himself to his editors, contributors, and readers, as well as many of the faces that would come to appear in Vanity Fair’s pages. He went on to run the magazine with overwhelming success for the next two and a half decades.

Filled with colorful memories and intimate details, When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter’s lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of the most talented editors in the business. Moving to New York from Canada, he worked at Time, Life, The New York Observer, and Spy, before catching the eye of Condé Nast chairman Si Newhouse, who pulled him in to run Vanity Fair. In Newhouse he found an unwavering champion, a loyal proprietor who gave Carter the editorial and financial freedom to thrive. Annie Leibovitz’s photographs would come to define the look of the magazine, as would the “New Establishment” and annual Hollywood issues. Carter further planted a flag in Los Angeles with the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party.

With his inimitable voice and signature quip, he brings readers to lunches and dinners with the great and good of America, Britain, and Europe. He assembled one of the most formidable stables of writers and photographers under one roof, and here he re-creates in real time the steps he took to ensure Vanity Fair cemented its place as the epicenter of art, culture, business, and politics, even as digital media took hold. Charming, candid, and brimming with stories, When the Going Was Good perfectly captures the last golden age of print magazines from the inside out.

Reviews

“I quickly and (mostly) happily consumed it anyway. The journalism stories and the character analysis, as Elizabeth Hardwick liked to call gossip, are first-rate.” —Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review

“Canadian journalist Graydon Carter learned the ropes at Time and Life before co-founding the magazine Spy. But he’s best known for his work as editor of Vanity Fair between 1992 and 2017, the period that dominates his breezy memoir. There’s Hollywood gossip, score-settling and tales from the era of limitless editorial budgets.” —Monocle

“Carter’s wry tone and hard-won insights make this a must-read for aspiring journalists and those who lived through the good old days of print magazines. It’s a blast.” —Publishers Weekly

“Carter chronicles the industry and its people with deep love and affection, and it’s a story of discovering one’s passion, persistence, and undeniably being in the right place at the right time . . . An engaging book for lovers of glossy magazines and the people who make them.” —Library Journal

“[A] rollicking memoir and heartfelt paean to the big, glossy, influential magazines of yore . . . Carter's zestful accounts of his editorial visions and their implementation are fascinating, as are his vivid profiles of writers, photographers, and Hollywood stars. Carter's delight in the chaos, effort, stress, and exhilaration of his editorships generate the effervescence and depth of this enthusiastically detailed chronicle.” —Booklist

Advance Praise:

“A page-turning, bighearted, self-knowing, anecdote-rich and often screechingly funny record of a life lived to the full. A great memoir by one of the great editors—and characters—of our time.” —Christopher Buckley

“A splendidly written and warmhearted handbook for how to live, for how to be a friend and a leader and a parent and a partner and a dining companion that gets invited back, and it's precisely the sort of book that makes one a better person after reading it. Everybody under the age of 40 should read this masterwork so that we might collectively bring back that golden age, and everybody over 40 should read it and summarily wave their handkerchiefs in admirable surrender.” —Lisa Taddeo

“A tour de force—informative, insightful, droll, and delightful. I am overwhelmed by When the Going Was Good.” —Gay Talese

“There is so much to savour in this enormously enjoyable memoir, but it’s the Vanity Fair chapters—an indispensable ‘how-to’ edit a magazine, host a party, curate a dinner, and inspire a legendary stable of writers—that form the centrepiece and highlight of this fascinating ride. You emerge from this enormously enjoyable memoir with the feeling of having just left an unforgettable party.” —Peter Morgan

“What a great read—but it had a downside. It served to remind me how unexciting, unremarkable, and uninteresting I am, especially compared to this Carter fellow, the charming, colorful, raconteur that he is. As Leon once said to me in a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm, ‘That mothafucka lived a life!” —Larry David

Author

© Nikolai von Bismarck
Graydon Carter is the founder of Air Mail. Before this, he was a staff writer for both Time and Life. He cocreated Spy, edited The New York Observer, and for twenty-five years was the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair. He is also the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer of more than a dozen documentaries and one hit Broadway play. He and his wife live in Greenwich Village, not far from the Waverly Inn, and have five children. View titles by Graydon Carter

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