Genius in Disguise

Starred review from February 27, 1995
This marvelous, gossipy biography of Harold Ross (1892-1951), the Colorado silver prospector's son who founded the New Yorker in 1925 and made it into a bastion of literary excellence and East Coast urbanity, is as much a portrait of the man as a revealing chronicle of the magazine. Ross dropped out of high school in Salt Lake City to become an itinerant newspaper reporter. As a WWI private, he went AWOL in France and trekked to Paris, where he edited the U.S. Army's weekly newspaper Stars and Stripes. Kunkel, a former reporter for the Miami Herald and the New York Times, lays to rest the lingering legend of Ross as a perpetually confused hayseed who succeeded by dumb luck. We meet a man of glaring contradictions-profane and puritanical, a conservative presiding over a decidedly liberal magazine-whose keen intellect and searching curiosity nurtured such talents as E.B. White, Janet Flanner, John Cheever, Dorothy Parker, John O'Hara and James Thurber. Kunkel illuminates Ross's three failed marriages, his clashes with his protege and successor William Shawn, and his bitter feud with his partner, yeast magnate Raoul Fleischmann. Illustrations not seen by PW.

February 15, 1995
In the task of writing this biography and arriving at a just estimate of the founder of The New Yorker, Kunkel had two things in his favor-the first that he is a practiced journalist and the second that he had at his disposal an extensive body of literature upon which to call and dozens of people he could interview. This book brings the reader closer to Ross the man than anything that has heretofore appeared. Kunkel does not pretend that this "frontier lad with a tenth-grade education" was a great man or original thinker. He presents him as a complex, controversial person who happened to have a reverence for the written word and a genius for finding writing talent. The book will give pleasure to all intelligent readers whether or not they know Ross or are fans of The New Yorker.-A.J. Anderson, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston

Starred review from March 1, 1995
How did a tall, gangly, gat-toothed fellow from Colorado become the founding editor of the "New Yorker," the nation's most urbane literary magazine? It took some doing and therein lies an irresistible and multifaceted story, one that Kunkel tells with flair. He traces Harold Ross' meandering path from Aspen, Colorado, to many points west and south and on to France during the first World War. Ross' work on the fledgling "Stars and Stripes" positioned him for his bold entry into New York publishing, but getting the "New Yorker" off the ground was as much the result of serendipity as of vision and hard work. There's no separating Ross from his magazine, so Kunkel's biography is by necessity also an analysis of Ross' innovations in magazine publishing. Kunkel describes Ross' acrimonious relationship with his patient business partner, Raoul Fleischmann, and positively revels in stories about Ross' fortuitous recruiting of such dynamic talents as Katherine Angell, E. B. White, James Thurber, Janet Flanner, and many other stellar writers. As Kunkel astutely chronicles the evolution of the "New Yorker," he relates dozens of anecdotes about the incomparable Ross who was, by turns, curmudgeonly, curious, assiduous, prankish, profane, uncompromising, generous, and brilliant. ((Reviewed Mar. 1, 1995))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1995, American Library Association.)