Back Then: Two Lives in 1950s New York [Hardcover]

Anne Bernays (Author), Justin Kaplan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2002

Infused with intelligence and charm, Back Then is an elegant reflection on transformative years in the lives of two young people and New York City. Marked by their youthful passion, this double memoir marries the authors' distinct literary styles with a riveting narrative that captures the density and texture of private, social, and working life in the 1950s.

Novelist Anne Bernays, born in 1930, and biographer Justin Kaplan, born in 1925, both natives of New York, came of age in the 1950s, when the pent-up energies of the Depression years and World War II were at flood tide. Back Then, written in two separate voices, is the candid, anecdotal account of two children of privilege, one from New York's East Side, the other from the West Side, pursuing careers in publishing and eventually leaving to write their own books. They both sought self-knowledge and realization through years of psychoanalysis. They brushed shoulders with celebrities like William Faulkner, Somerset Maugham, Marlene Dietrich, and Anatole Broyard.

Before Bernays and Kaplan met and married, each had enjoyed the sexual and social freedom that, along with the dark shadow of McCarthyism and the Cold War, was among the distinguishing marks of the 1950s. In many other respects, the story they tell could almost as well be about an earlier era.

This vibrant, balanced memoir offers an indelible portrait of postwar New York -- exhilarating, hospitable, and affordable. A striking collaboration by two prominent figures in American letters, Back Then surprises and delights as Bernays and Kaplan recall their youthful pursuits, the merging of their lives, and the city's underlying influence on them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bernays's first date with Kaplan was over lunch. Glancing at the menu, Kaplan recommended the calf's brains and Bernays made a split-second decision: I could never marry a man who ate brains for lunch or, as far as that went, for any other meal. But the not-yet-prestigious writers (he went on to win a Pulitzer for Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain; she has written eight well-received novels) did marry, and they have collaborated on this double memoir recounting their remarkably parallel lives in 1950s New York City. Both grew up in well-to-do Jewish families, she on Manhattan's Upper East Side, he on the Upper West Side; both went away to college, majored in English and returned to New York to work in publishing. What makes this book successful is the way both writers capture the diverse sounds and sense of various subcultures in the city: bohemian, literary, Jewish, upper-crust, etc. They alternate chapters, and both writers have entirely distinct voices and styles of writing: Bernays's chapters are narrative driven, personal and filled with anecdote, while Kaplan maintains a certain distance from the subject at hand (that is, himself), offering character sketches of his colleagues and associates. Though the couple eventually leaves New York, the book serves as a hymn to the city of their youth: Still relatively restrained in style, and with as yet only a subdominant glitter, chic, and Babylonian arrogance. Well written and thoughtful, this memoir gives a nice flavor of urban cultural life in the 1950s. B&w photos.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Novelist Bernays (Short Pleasures) and biographer Kaplan (Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain), who are married to each other, have written separate narratives of their younger personal and professional lives that, artfully interwoven, provide a vivid picture of what it was like to be gifted in 1950s New York City, when a heady sense of opportunity and possibility prevailed. While they each write candidly of individual experience, they are mindful of being representative as well. The privileged daughter of PR pioneer Edward Bernays before the war, her family occupied an entire floor of the swank Sherry-Netherland Hotel Bernays writes of life at Wellesley and then Barnard, where she majored in English, and of being a member of the Silent Generation whose goal was to draw no attention to herself. For his part, Kaplan, the son of an Orthodox Jew, describes the pain of the growing distance between himself and his father's religion and Russian background. He also recalls a Harvard where learning seemed hermetic. Working in New York's publishing houses, the authors got a good sense of the era's attitudes on such topics as psychoanalysis, sex, babies, civil rights, the arms race, the Holocaust, women's clothing, and the Waldorf salad. In a lighthearted style, this work says much about all the things that made the 1950s a unique decade in American life. Recommended for all libraries. Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (May 28, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060198559
• ISBN-13: 978-0060198558
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,548,164 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Two incredibly superficial lives in the 1950's, June 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Back Then: Two Lives in 1950s New York (Hardcover)

For two people who both began their professional lives in editing and publishing, it is striking how this book, which describes that very beginning, is in need of a heavy editorial hand (Wachtel -- your hand ain't that merciless). The kind of repetition that is regularly encountered (how many times, and in how many pithy formulations do I have to be informed of the cliche that, "this generation" was the generation of freud fans) is not of an interesting artistic kind produced due the fact that there are two alternating narrative voices. Rather, each writer, repeats him and herself within his and her own narrative.

Stylistic quarrels aside, I was struck by what the authors say in their joint introduction about their first collaboration on an article; the piece, about walks in New York, they say, conveyed, "... too much immersion in fashion magazine prose." While, the authors' claim that they are intent on trying to not let "hindsight, regret and reconsideration" distort their account is too ridiculous to even critique, I do believe that they have successfully conveyed the extent to which the people that they were "back then" (if we are to believe them, this has no bearing on the authorial voice which represents these people!) were "too much immersed" in a certain kind of fashion magazine prose, or at any rate, a certain kind of "let's talk about shoes, hair and makeup and throw in a heavy dose of literary names and references for good measure"-prose.

It has to be admitted that Bernays and Kaplan err on different poles of this prose continuum. Bernays treats us to more excitable detail about socio-fashion related facts, Kaplan leans heavily on name-dropping, french-literary-phrase-dropping and posh-literary-gossip. Bernays tells us more about sex (hers and others'), divulges more about familial structures (though where, oh where, has her sister gone, and for that matter, how come I only find out close to the end that Kaplan has an older brother!). Essentially she's very much the charming hostess of this work, while Kaplan lives up to the character created (by both him and her) of being the somewhat taciturn but serious/serial literary insider (the sense of humor which both he and B claim he has, is something which he keeps very much under wraps in actually formulating his account.)

This book (as laid out in the intro) sees it self as being not in the memoire genre, but rather, as a glimpse into "lives" of a certain kind (class?) "back then." However, perhaps due to the authors' insistence to not let hindsight in, a potentially illuminating critical account is blocked (though to give her credit, Bernays slips up, and occasionally tries) -- such that I am given neither "two lives" (in the sense of two strong personal narratives) and nor am I really given the tools to understand the "everyman" of the world which K and B portray. So, basically the book reads to me like a peep into a cocktail party to which I'd never be invited (wrong class, wrong age, wrong clothes, wrong interests etc.); I can smell the delectable food, glimpse the martini glasses, and discern some muffled conversation and laughter -- but I can't quite make it out, the people seem artificial, out of date, and frankly, not all that interesting, and there's a better party going on round the corner.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Doubly delightful, July 31, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Back Then: Two Lives in 1950s New York (Hardcover)

This memoir is doubly delightful because it's written by two of the wittiest and most interesting contemporary writers. We see two visions of New York City life in the 1950's--one male, one female--and have the fun of watching how these two separate lives end up intertwining. (The authors are husband and wife.) The writing is bright and rich--you're in the hands of masters of style from start to finish.
Although anyone interested in the world of publishing will find the book riviting, BACK THEN will appeal to a broad spectrum of readers. It's an intriguing record of what the working world was like for educated women in the 50's (it's easy to forget today how things were before the Women's Movement!) and it's also a charming love story.
The two authors grew up wealthy and privileged, but in spite of this, they were clearly not spoiled. They knew and rubbed shoulders with a dazzling array of famous people (Bernays, for instance, is a great niece of Freud; Kaplan got to dance with Marilyn Monroe at a party,) and they bring us into their world with warmth and openness. There's no arrogance here. Both authors are able to smile at themselves and able to make us smile along with them. And smile we do! This is the kind of book that will keep you up reading late at night and make you want to wake your spouse so you can read aloud your favorite sections (if you haven't woken him or her already with your laughter.)
BACK THEN creates the best kind of reader dilemma: youll want to gobble up the story and at the same time you'll want to savor every line.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Two incredibly superficial lives in the 1950's, June 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Back Then: Two Lives in 1950s New York (Hardcover)

For two people who both began their professional lives in editing and publishing, it is striking how this book, which describes that very beginning, is in need of a heavy editorial hand (Wachtel -- your hand ain't that merciless). The kind of repetition that is regularly encountered (how many times, and in how many pithy formulations do I have to be informed of the cliche that, "this generation" was the generation of freud fans) is not of an interesting artistic kind produced due the fact that there are two alternating narrative voices. Rather, each writer, repeats him and herself within his and her own narrative.

Stylistic quarrels aside, I was struck by what the authors say in their joint introduction about their first collaboration on an article; the piece, about walks in New York, they say, conveyed, "... too much immersion in fashion magazine prose." While, the authors' claim that they are intent on trying to not let "hindsight, regret and reconsideration" distort their account is too ridiculous to even critique, I do believe that they have successfully conveyed the extent to which the people that they were "back then" (if we are to believe them, this has no bearing on the authorial voice which represents these people!) were "too much immersed" in a certain kind of fashion magazine prose, or at any rate, a certain kind of "let's talk about shoes, hair and makeup and throw in a heavy dose of literary names and references for good measure"-prose.

It has to be admitted that Bernays and Kaplan err on different poles of this prose continuum. Bernays treats us to more excitable detail about socio-fashion related facts, Kaplan leans heavily on name-dropping, french-literary-phrase-dropping and posh-literary-gossip. Bernays tells us more about sex (hers and others'), divulges more about familial structures (though where, oh where, has her sister gone, and for that matter, how come I only find out close to the end that Kaplan has an older brother!). Essentially she's very much the charming hostess of this work, while Kaplan lives up to the character created (by both him and her) of being the somewhat taciturn but serious/serial literary insider (the sense of humor which both he and B claim he has, is something which he keeps very much under wraps in actually formulating his account.)

This book (as laid out in the intro) sees it self as being not in the memoire genre, but rather, as a glimpse into "lives" of a certain kind (class?) "back then." However, perhaps due to the authors' insistence to not let hindsight in, a potentially illuminating critical account is blocked (though to give her credit, Bernays slips up, and occasionally tries) -- such that I am given neither "two lives" (in the sense of two strong personal narratives) and nor am I really given the tools to understand the "everyman" of the world which K and B portray. So, basically the book reads to me like a peep into a cocktail party to which I'd never be invited (wrong class, wrong age, wrong clothes, wrong interests etc.); I can smell the delectable food, glimpse the martini glasses, and discern some muffled conversation and laughter -- but it's all to fuzzy to make anything out, the people seem artificial, out of date, and frankly, not all that interesting, and there's a better party going on round the corner.