The Price of Illusion

Starred review from November 28, 2016
From the very beginning of this lapidary memoir, Buck (The Only Place to Be) is immersed in illusion. Her father, Jules Buck, was a cinematographer for John Huston before founding Keep Films with Peter O’Toole. Joan inherited her father’s eye for props, but while he used them to create feeling, she read feeling into them. Her elegant descriptions are glued together with a mortar of famous names (Jeanne Moreau, Lauren Bacall, Anjelica Huston). None of her youthful flirtations (Tom Wolfe) and more-than-flirtations (Donald Sutherland) lasted: “I couldn’t read humans as easily as I could read the meaning of their clothes.” In 1994, she became editor of French Vogue and spiraled into a psychedelic head trip of beautiful objects set against her gathering anxiety and her father’s mental illness. She was let go in 2001 after a stint in rehab, not for chemical dependency but for what she sees as an addiction to the “glossy view of life.” She relapsed with a puff piece for American Vogue on Bashar al-Assad’s wife. For the most part, she shies away from self-analysis: her divorce from John Heilpern, a onetime contributing editor to Vanity Fair, is dismissed with a terse “I’d tried to have a normal life, and failed.” Yet overall, Buck includes a brilliant amount of detail in this memoir. Agent: Andy McNicol, WME.

January 1, 2017
The essayist, critic, novelist, and former editor-in-chief of Paris Vogue reflects on the triumphs and excesses of her fashionable past.As the only child of celebrated parents, Buck (Daughter of the Swan, 1987, etc.) enjoyed a privileged upbringing among many of the 20th century's more notable celebrities. Her father, Jules Buck, was a Hollywood producer perhaps best known for helping to launch Peter O'Toole's early film career. In sometimes-meandering detail, the author relives her restless years as she established an esteemed reputation as a writer and authority on fashion and culture. There's some excessive name-dropping as Buck references numerous Hollywood and fashion elites in quick succession, yet rarely does she pause for many of these individuals--e.g., Donald Sutherland and Brian De Palma--to spring to life on these pages. Throughout the book, the author explores her complicated and evolving relationship with her parents. Her father, in particular, asserted a domineering influence even as his increasingly erratic behavior in later years weighed on her existence as a burden--but also a reliable touchstone. Buck's narrative gathers focus and momentum when she lands the Vogue position in her late 40s. Within these chapters, she provides acute, illuminating observations on the challenges of running a fashion magazine and of the pretensions of the industry. Her description of Susan Train, Vogue's Paris bureau chief, provides an uncompromising glimpse into this world: "She fielded the daily telexes from New York demanding a dress, a photographer, a model, a star, a location, a car, a different car, a different dress, a chateau instead of a house, not that chateau, the other chateau, visas for Yemen, customs declarations, tissue paper, dangerous wildlife, rare flowers, rarer flowers, bushes, buds, trees, photogenic children of impeccable pedigree. She flawlessly navigated the chasms of rage that roiled in the heart of every fashion player. Even the messengers were touchy." An overlong but relentlessly candid and often absorbing account of a complex life spent in and out of the fashion spotlight.

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February 1, 2017

Writer and cultural critic Buck grew up in Paris in the 1950s as a part of the expatriate film community. Her father, film producer Jules Buck, chose John Huston as her godfather and treated actor Peter O'Toole like a member of the family. This memoir describes living in a family and social world where appearances seemed to be as important as reality. The author's education at Sarah Lawrence was cut short when she started working at Glamour, beginning a career in journalism that included Vogue, Vanity Fair, Women's Wear Daily, and The New Yorker. Buck served as editor in chief of Paris Vogue from 1994 to 2001. Here, she details her work, active social life, and the ongoing drama of her relationship with her parents. Her rich romantic life included a marriage to journalist John Heilpern and a series of affairs with famous, obscure, and "secret" men. This narrative offers a snapshot of a slice of society and an era that includes haute couture, the AIDS epidemic, and the waning of magazines. VERDICT Fans of high fashion and celebrity culture will enjoy this insider account. Buck's straight-forward style reads more like a discrete social history than a deeply personal reflection on her life.--Judy Solberg, Sacramento, CA

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