My Life with The New Yorker

By Kenneth Ring, Ph.D.

Before my mother went bonkers (you can read the sad story of my mother’s life, if you wish, by consulting a series of blogs I wrote several years ago under the title, “The Rose That Failed to Bloom”), she was a reader with a wry sense of humor. In those days we often played Scrabble together, and though, as I recall, I generally won, she usually gave me all I could handle. She had a good vocabulary.

I have many reasons to feel indebted to my mother, but one of them for which I have long been especially grateful is that it was she who introduced me to The New Yorker when I was thirteen years old. Of course, at that time, I was probably more interested in their cartoons than in their articles, so I know I didn’t continue to read its issues regularly. It probably wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I started to read it regularly (and could finally understand most of the wit of the cartoons). But whenever I began, I have never stopped. Every week, when a new issue is published, I am usually avid to scan its contents to see what reading pleasures await me.

Recently, I had occasion to think about my mother’s gift to me because a week or so ago, there was a special issue of magazine to mark its exact centenary, as its first issue came into this world in February, 1925. Like Bizet’s opera, Carmen, after its premiere just a hundred and fifty years ago, it was a flop. But, again like Bizet’s opera, it eventually became an enduring hit. It certainly has been an indispensable companion to me all these many years.

Once that issue arrived, I was eager to peruse its contents in order to revisit some of my favorite contributors from years past. After I had read a couple of articles, I wrote about them to my girlfriend, Lauren, who, like me, has long been a regular reader of The New Yorker.

Many of you may not be familiar with the writers whose articles I refer to here, but I will say more about them in the course of writing this blog. In any case, this is what I wrote to Lauren:

The reason I asked you if you could read The New Yorker online is that tonight, over dinner, I read two terrific pieces I wanted to recommend to you. The first one is a short article about Janet Malcolm who was always someone I would read anything by. She was, of course, a very important  journalist. This article was about the letters she exchanged with a famous psychoanalyst named Kurt Eissler when she was researching the work for her exceptional piece of reportage, In the Archives. Do read it.  BTW, in it, the man she wrote about, besides Eissler, was named Jeffrey Masson. I was friends with him.

But the second article, which is much longer, is by Adam Gopnik. It’s about a devastating profile written by another famous New Yorker journalist, Lillian Ross (a longtime lover of the longtime New Yorker editor, William Shawn), about Ernest Hemingway. This article is a stunner; it’s brilliant. For several reasons, among them Gopnik’s riff on a psychoanalytic interpretation of the possible dynamics between Ross and Hemingway.

These two articles really complement one another and should be read in the order I’ve given here. First, the short Malcolm piece, and then, the Gopnik article.

I think you’ll enjoy and appreciate both of them, especially since you're a therapist yourself.   

I love reading about these writers since, as I’m sure I’ve told you, I started reading The New Yorker when I was 13 (my mother had a subscription) and grew up and old reading these writers. They were really my teachers and mentors; they educated me.

Indeed, I have been to three schools in my life: Cal-Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, and The New Yorker Academy. The writers for this magazine were my professors. From them, I learned about history, politics,  psychoanalysis, writers, the arts, especially painting and music, fiction – and humor! What smattering of culture I have managed to acquire during my long lifetime I mostly owe to what I’ve read in The New Yorker.

For the remainder of this blog, I would like to introduce you to some of the contributors to this magazine who have meant so much to me and who have enriched the lives of so many others. But I want to start with someone who did not actually write for the magazine himself, but who played an indispensable role in making it into the outstanding and justly celebrated periodical that it became, its longtime editor, William Shawn.

But to backtrack a bit before getting to Shawn, the magazine’s founder and first editor was Harold Ross, who was a legendary character in the annals of the history of The New Yorker. Books have been written about him and his role in the creation and masterminding of the magazine in its first years is well known. But as he died in 1951, he was before my time. I came to know and love the magazine only when Shawn succeeded Ross as its editor in 1952. He continued in that post for the next thirty-five years, until 1987, during the heyday of the magazine.

The first thing to say about Shawn is that he was a very strange man. He was elusive, enigmatic and, frankly, downright weird. For one thing, he was pathologically shy. He was also claustrophobic and had a phobia of getting stuck in elevators. It was rumored that he carried a hatchet in his briefcase lest he became trapped. Shawn himself was very short and physically unprepossessing, which may account, in part, for his almost passive, self-effacing personality.

His editorial practices were quizzical, too. He would buy articles and keep them in his desk for years. He also was unusually devoted to his writers. One of them, Joseph Mitchell, who as a young man wrote superb articles and stories about New York life, especially about oddballs and the down-and-out during the Depression, stopped writing in the 1960s. Nevertheless, he continued to come to his office until he died in 1996 without writing another word. Mitchell, too, is another New Yorker legend, and like Shawn himself, a mystery.

But for all that, Shawn was a beloved and revered editor.  J. D. Salinger, the author of the best-seller, The Catcher in the Rye, about whom I will be writing later, loved Shawn, dedicated his novel, Franny and Zooey to him,  and called Shawn the "most unreasonably modest of born great artist-editors." Many of the writers Shawn edited also had nothing but appreciation for his scrupulous devotion to his craft.

Perhaps the oddest thing about Shawn is that he lived a double life. He was married to a woman named Cecille by whom he had three children. But he had a second secret life and home that he shared with a New Yorker writer, Lillian Ross (the same woman who would write that devastating article about Hemingway), with whom Shawn fell hopelessly in love and by whom he had another child. He would divide his time between his two homes and families, spending some holidays with one, and some with the other. All very civilized. He would not divorce his wife, and Ross apparently never asked him to do so. 

There is a sad and somewhat shocking coda to the love story between Shawn and Ross. After Shawn’s death, Ross, who would herself die at the great age of 99, wrote a tell-all memoir about Shawn and their relationship, Here But Not Here. The title apparently refers to the phrase used by Shawn to describe his sense of not being fully present or himself when he was with his wife. The book was widely panned when it was published, perhaps in part owing to the fact that Ross did so while Shawn’s wife was still alive. Not so civilized, after all, it seems.

By the way, I mentioned in passing that Shawn had three children by his wife, Cecille. You have heard of one of them, the actor, Wally Shawn. Wally, like his father, is a runt, a gnome-like figure, almost a kind of homunculus. In his films, he is almost invariably portrayed as a kind of Jewish Danny DeVito, a comic character like a jester we are meant to be amused by.

But don’t be deceived by his appearance. Like Kierkegaard whose physical deformity made him a sometimes laughingstock for the children of Copenhagen who could not know how supremely intelligent he was and what a great religious thinker he would become, much the same is true for Wally Shawn.

Among other things, he can be a very serious actor. Check out his playing Uncle Vanya in a film of Chekhov’s play called "Vanya on 42nd Street," or in one of his signature roles in the 1981 classic film, "My Dinner with André."

But, again, Shawn is more than a talented actor; he is a deeply gifted playwright whose plays are often difficult to watch or read because of their searing intensity and the raw feelings that they evoke. I have seen one of his plays (twice), "Aunt Dan and Lemon," and read a book of his other plays. They are brutal and wrenching to read.  

Shawn makes his living as a comedic actor, but what you see on the screen is not what you get when you learn about his mind. 

But I digress. Let’s return to The New Yorker and to some of the contributors I have especially cherished.

The journalists

Janet Flanner (who wrote under the pen name Genet) joined The New Yorker at the very beginning, 1925, and wrote for it for the next fifty years. She was based in Paris and wrote dispatches from there during WWII.

Of course, I only became familiar with her work in the 1960s, but I distinctly remember seeing her name, Genet, often in those years. She exemplified the excellence of The New Yorker reportage during her long career.

A. J. Liebling wrote for The New Yorker beginning in 1935 (the year of my birth) until his death in 1963. He was an epicure (loved French cuisine, perhaps too much),  a war correspondent like Genet, a biographer, and wit. His book on boxing, The Sweet Science, was named “the greatest sports book of all time” by Sports Illustrated.

A New Yorker writer of my generation, Pete Hamill, captured Liebling’s ebullient personality and proclivities in a few words: “He was a gourmand of words in addition to food… he retained his taste for ‘low’ culture too: boxers and corner men, con men and cigar store owners, political hacks and hack operators. They’re all celebrated in [his] pages.”

I discovered his work only after his death, and loved the man, though, of course, he never knew it.

Janet Malcolm was the journalist I most admired for her acerbic prose and gimlet-eyed intelligence. She wrote with a stiletto. She was particularly celebrated for her writings on psychoanalysis, which I read avidly during the 1970s, and for her penetrating analysis of the dynamics between a journalist and his subject. As a journalist she was, in my opinion, peerless and fearless.

Elizabeth Kolbert is a contemporary journalist specializing in writing about the environment and, especially, climate change. An author of the best-selling book, The Sixth Extinction, she has travelled the world to interview scientists about their work. Writing about the most depressing of subjects with wit and elegance, she has educated me (and many others) about the dangers of a warming, and possibly doomed, planet. I read all of her articles religiously and have never been disappointed.

The critics

Pauline Kael for years wrote about film for The New Yorker in a way that was matchless. She was the queen of movie reviewers – provocative, iconoclastic, fulsome with praise for the films she liked, and withering for those she detested. I always read her reviews eagerly and learned so much from them.

Peter Schjeldahl wrote about art and educated me like my own weekly docent. I never learned how to pronounce his name, but he never seemed to care. Before his recent death, he wrote very movingly about facing the end of his life. I have missed him ever since, as I’m sure many his fans have, too.

Winthrop Sargeant was during my twenties my go-to-music critic. He was a marvelous writer, and helped not only to inform but to form my own musical tastes. I will always feel indebted to him for what he taught me about classical music.

Adam Gopnik has been writing for The New Yorker since 1986 and has become its pre-eminent critic. The winner of many awards for his writing, Gopnik is simply a wonder. I can sum him up by saying he has read everything, remembers everything he has read, and seems to know everything worth knowing. He is one of a kind, a treasure, and I am thoroughly in awe of him.

David Remnick is the longtime editor of the magazine as well as the author of many books. But I list him here among the critics largely because of the incisive essays he has written in recent years, particularly about Trump and the dangers Trump and his satraps pose for American democracy.   

The writers

Oh, where to begin? The writers have been the lifeblood of the magazine. But in this blog, I can hardly do much more than to mention a few of them and to apologize to the many I will have to ignore. In some cases, even here, I have room for only a few words about some of them.

Mavis Gallant wrote many short stories for the magazine, and, if I remember correctly, also wrote some film reviews.

John Cheever did likewise. Widely read and admired during his lifetime, he seems little read or even remembered today. But perhaps I am wrong about that.

John Hersey was the author of several well-regarded books, but in the history of The New Yorker, he is known primarily for the publication in the August 31st issue of the magazine in 1946 of the entirety of his book, Hiroshima, about the effects of the nuclear attack on that city. Shawn was not afraid to devote entire issues to one writer. Couldn’t happen today.

John Updike was my absolute favorite writer for The New Yorker. He wrote dozens and dozens of articles for it - short fiction, literary criticism and book reviews, wrote on art, and so on. His justly celebrated prose – he was a master stylist, as is well known – was exemplary. I would always read anything he wrote. I read many his novels, too, including all four volumes of his Rabbit Run series, a chronicle of mid-20th century American life, as my way of honoring him after his death. 

J. D. Salinger was another one of those nutty New Yorker writers who wound up being a Garbo-esque recluse living in the woods of New Hampshire where he engaged in innumerable, bizarre metaphysical practices that you can read about on the Internet.

But before he went off the rails, he was a literary sensation after his book, The Catcher in the Rye, was published in 1951. It soon became an iconic best-seller. Salinger was briefly regarded as the 20th century Mark Twain. He also published a number of short stories in The New Yorker that eventually was published in a collection called Nine Stories, which was similarly lauded.  

What happened to him after that, you’ll have to read for yourself, if you’re interested.

Oliver Sacks is everyone’s favorite writer, including mine (though Updike was my favorite novelist). I fell in love with him after reading his marvelous book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which I remember reading aloud to my then girlfriend, while in bed with her, in Big Sur. After that, I read many of his other books and various articles, some of which appeared in The New Yorker.

At one point, I even wrote to Sacks to ask him, as a world-famous neurologist, if he could account for how the blind people in one of my studies could actually see during their NDEs. He was kind enough to reply in two handwritten letters, which he wrote while suffering from a serious visual problem. He confessed he could not explain my findings, but his letters were charming and very kind. I loved him even more after that.

A few years later, he published an article in The New Yorker on an NDE case I was familiar with, and I wrote a letter to the editor about it. They were all set to publish it, but it was bumped at the last minute. Rats! My chance to be published in The New Yorker, along with my 15 minutes of fame – gone in a trice.

As you probably know, Sacks died a couple of years ago. Like his many fans, I mourned his death and miss him. But he was a person of immense importance in my life, and I will never forget him.

The humorists

Of course, from its beginning, The New Yorker was known for its humor – both for its cartoons and for writers like James Thurber and Robert Benchley who wrote humorous pieces for the magazine during its early years. Here I will just mention of a few of my favorites.

S. J. Perelman was certainly the most highly regarded humorist of The New Yorker during his long reign as a writer for the magazine. Not only were his pieces uproarious, but they were studded with his immense and wide-ranging vocabulary, as baroque and clever, as you could you imagine, and, in my case, envy. His satires afforded me enormous pleasure.  

A few years ago, I read his biography, which caused me to see him in a different light. He wasn’t really that nice a man, it turns out, but what does it matter? Many artists have immense character flaws, but so what?

We love them for what they have given us; we don’t have to live with them.

E. B. White on the other hand was seemingly a peach of a fellow, even if he was a risible hypochondriac. He joined The New Yorker staff early on and functioned in a variety of roles – he wrote amusing trifles for The Talk of the Town section, he edited the work of other writers, and he wrote humorous pieces of his own. I eventually read some of them, but I also read some of his books, beginning with everyone’s favorite manual of style, Elements of Style. “Brevity, brevity, brevity” was one of his ironic maxims. 

When my kids were young, I read his book, Charlotte’s Web, to them one afternoon. I wound up weeping at the end. “Mommy, mommy,” one of my daughters cried in alarm, “daddy is crying!”   

E. B. White was always called Andy by his friends and family. I don’t know why, but he seems to have been a loveable cuss.  

Woody Allen. Yes, when he was young and not yet that well known for his films – and long before his reputation became tarnished by accusations of sexual improprieties – he wrote several humorous satires for The New Yorker.  I remember that some of them were later published in book called, I believe, Pigeon Feathers. Who knows why?

As I’ve written elsewhere, I have always identified with Woody Allen. I could tell you why, but I won’t.   

The Sportsmen

Herbert Warren Wind was during my early years with The New Yorker, the man who wrote in a beautiful prose style about golf. In those days before I became a Fedhead and began to follow tennis in a devoted fashion, I followed golf. Those were the glory years of the sport. I became interested in it in the days of golfing stars like Ben Hogan and Slamming Sammy Snead, who were followed by the advent of later stars like Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.

Many people think golf is a boring sport. You wouldn’t think so if you could have read HWW on golf. He was a superlative connoisseur of the sport, and he wrote about in an enthralling way. He may be forgotten now, but not by me.

Roger Angell. I have saved the best of my New Yorker idols for last. There is no one who represents the spirit and the best of The New Yorker tradition than this man.

Consider his heritage. He is the son of Katharine Angell, one of the first and most important of the magazine editors who worked with Harold Ross at the beginning.  E. B. White, always “Andy” to Roger, was his beloved stepfather.

Roger worked for The New Yorker primarily as an editor, like his mother, but eventually he began publishing very long articles on baseball, particularly after the World Series. Since in those days I was an ardent fan of the Boston Red Sox, I would always look forward to these enjoyable year-end summaries. And in time, I would buy and read Roger’s books on baseball. He became as much of an expert on that sport as HWW was on golf. In time, I found I was as enamored of Roger as I was of Oliver Sacks. He became another one of my literary heroes.

He continued to write well into his nineties. The last book of his I read was called This Old Man, which he brought out in his mid-nineties. He died a few years ago, another one of those long-lived New Yorker writers, at the age of 101.  

What a joy was Roger Angell.   

*********************

A few final thoughts before wrapping up this long blog.

First, I must say something about its obvious omissions.

I have said virtually nothing about the many editors who have worked so diligently and silently over so many years to bring the articles in The New Yorker into the best possible form before publication. They are too many to name, so I'll just mention two of them. One is Katharine Angell to whom I have already alluded who worked so closely with Harold Ross soon after the magazine was started. The other I’ll mention is just because of his delightful name, which I’ve never forgotten: St. Clair McKelway.

I have also completely scanted all the cartoonists who have contributed so much pleasure and humor to New Yorker readers from the outset of the magazine to the present day. Who can forget the zany and zingy geometric stylings of Saul Steinberg or the macabre cartoons of Charles Addams? It pains me to have neglected so many others who deserve to be acknowledged and thanked in more than a generic note like this one.

Finally, I have to say that as I’ve become very old, I can no longer read the print version of The New Yorker, though I still look through it when it arrives. Fortunately, I can read it online these days. Nevertheless, I find that its current contents often don’t hold the same interest for me as they used to. Time marches on, but I seem to have been marching in place for years now. This is no longer my world; it belongs to the young.

Still, I treasure my memories of all those New Yorker teachers who did so much to educate, enlighten and thrill me through what they have written in the pages of this magazine.   

Thanks, mom!