From Publishers Weekly
Writing about the Ike and Tina Turner show at Carnegie Hall in 1971, Lerman notes, "Tina and Ike are primitive, outdoor water-closet...[she] turns them on with stupid smut. My father would have found them provocative." And while it is no surprise that Lerman, longtime features editor at
Vogue, later editor-in-chief of
Vanity Fair and all-round arts devotee, disliked them—his tastes ran more to Lotte Lenya singing Kurt Weill—it demonstrates that he was omnivorous in his desire to experience the full range of culture and entertainment. This broad, selection of Lerman's journals is filled with great gossip (on everything from Ruth Gordon's eating habits to architect Philip Johnson's sex life) and some astute remarks on art. Lerman (1914–1994) is a great diarist: the details are precise, the information careening from idiosyncratic to important, and his tone endlessly amused and amusing. While he can be peevish and even mean, he is also frequently funny and generous. The casual reader may be lost at times, but if you are moderately conversant with high art and high society—or just want to know what Princess Marina, duchess of Kent, wore to the Metropolitan Opera in September 1956, Lerman's journals are perfect. 24 pages of photos, 8 in color.
(Apr. 6) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The New Yorker
Lerman, who died in 1994, was at the center of fashionable New York society for almost fifty years, thanks to his work at such magazines as Vogue and Mademoiselle. The son of a housepainter in East Harlem, Lerman was drawn to "the surface glitter" of the élite, and he helped launch the careers of countless singers, writers, actresses, and artists. He was known for frugal but grand soirées—Marlene Dietrich emptied the ashtrays at one; William Faulkner stood in line with Maria Callas for Chinese food at another—but he never entirely lost his sense of being an outsider, or his feeling that magazine work was a distraction from "a life of letters." Lerman’s diaries, interspersed with his correspondence and an unfinished memoir, form a rich, occasionally rueful mosaic of a man who collected friendships the way those around him collected wealth or accolades, and who, most of the time, seemed to find his life the better for it.
Copyright © 2007
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