Customer Reviews

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [movie tie-in]: A Memoir

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It is very rare these days that I find a book engrossing enough to read in one sitting and which also makes me laugh out loud. Toby Young, who has an unerring ability to focus on his own shortcomings, does an excellent job of explaining exactly how not to get on in New York. His waggish personality, a healthy appetite for drink and a large stock of off-colour jokes -- all attributes which would serve you well as a journalist in London -- ensure he makes a total mess of pretty much everything he does in Manhattan, the mothership of all that is politically correct in the United States. Indeed, when Vanity Fair boss Graydon Carter fires Young, he tells our hapless hero that he has a brown thumb. "Everything you touch turns to ****," he explains with a laugh. Young is the squarest of pegs in a world where all the holes are round and to make matters worse, a friend of his who went to Los Angeles at the same time strikes immediate and lucrative success. Young is also very funny about his total lack of success with American women, largely because they quickly realise he is broke (and has quite a few complexes, as well as an impressively large collection of appalling pick-up lines). Two-thirds of the way through, the book suddenly becomes more serious as Young realises he has hit rock bottom and starts groping for a way out. To say much more would give too much away but it's well worth sticking through to the end.

What a clever book. Ignore the provocative title - Brits are trained from birth to jettison friends and loved ones and skilled alienation is in their DNA. (I think it's also stipulated in the Magna Carta).

This is the witty memoir to jolt us out of Alertness Fatigue and all the government-induced 9/11 jitters essential to keep us focused on Saddam-bashing.

Here's this self-effacing Brit arriving in the Big Bagel to take Condé Nast by storm and canoodle with the celebs - and he totally flubs it on every front. Any self-respecting dude would pack up and go sell matches down Nacogdoches way, but not them blue-bloods. The Honorable Toby Young pauses only to fire up the word processor and - shazam - he's got a hot book out of it that also wreaks hilarious revenge on those who rejoiced in his downfall in the first place.

The book amuses wherever it falls open: the list of words banned by the Canuck airforce brat editor of 'Vanity Fair', Graydon 'Powerstrut' Carter; Young's brilliant idea for an profile of ubiquitous partygoer Jay McInerney as a notorious recluse à la Salinger or Pynchon; belletrist GW's winning way with the "clipboard Nazis" at the Bowery Bar; the major babes in the C-Nast elevators, sizing each other up "with the cold-blooded hostility of professional athletes", pouncing on any perceived fashion disaster with disapproving comments ranging "from the fairly mild - 'Aggressive choice!' - to the outright rude - 'It ain't working, honey.'"

"Alienate" abounds in such gems, delivered with a sure pen and sharpest ear and with that killer diffidence that makes your upper class Oxford type so dangerous to turn one's back on.

Nor is it just a catalog of TY's pathetic inability to bed any of this great country's Grade 1 beauties. Just when you think he's clowning, out comes Tocqueville from the bottom of the
deck and it's spot-on stuff - like that famed observation that "I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in America." Ouch, but also let him try mouthing that around the 'Lonely Pines Grill & Bar' ...

Don't take my word for it: check out "HLFAP" at the library or your local brick n mortar and see if you can stop browsing or grinning. Nice one, Mister Young.

Toby Young manages to combine gossip, farce and social commentary in one terrifically well written book. While he makes sport of many famous media folk, he doesn't spare himself. This book reads like a primer on how NOT to behave in media circles, with many laugh out loud passages detailing Young's spectacular social and professional blunders. If you are extremely politically correct, this is not the book for you. And if you take offense at any critiques of the American way of life, you won't exactly see eye to eye with Young. I found the book insightful and refreshing, especially during this period of too often blind patriotism. Young writes about Graydon Carter and Alexis deTocqueville with equal facility, and manages to make all of it interesting. You start out thinking Young is a big jerk, but by the end, he's won you over.

Toby Young certainly does lose friends and alienate people in this sometimes interesting, sometimes boring memoir of his life as an English journalist in New York. The most interesting parts of the book relate to his stint at Conde Nast (or "The Conde Nasties") working for Vanity Fair magazine, and his clashes with the editor, Graydon Carter. Young is fired after two years, and it is really no surprise. Young does not play the game, finds his sophomoric antics humorous, and just doesn't seem to fit in at the glossy magazine.

Toby Young's life during this period is pretty depressing. He can't hold down a job, is threatened with a lawsuit by Tina Brown, and is even fired by Bob Guccione, Jr. Toby Young does not try to paint himself as anything other than he is; a middle aged, balding, short, anti-social alcoholic with a poor work ethic. He compares the UK and New York endlessly, and complains of not being able to "get laid" in New York City, because the women are "shallow." However, he is equally shallow in judging the women he does date, and he treats them very badly, then wonders why they "dump him."

Toby Young is an unapologetic jerk, yet his book does have some appeal. It is interesting to view the world of Manhattan and its social structure, the publishing world, and the view of an outsider on what makes it tick. There are some interesting tidbits, but Young often stretches things to fill space. He could have told these stories as a series of essays, making the book half its size and twice as readable. It ends up being very difficult to find the enthusiasm to finish the book, but, you want to know what happened to this fellow, anyhow.

My initial reaction while reading How to Lose Friends and Alienate People was one of shock. Young's vivid portrayal of the pathetically shallow lives that are led by those people whose sole purpose is to be a parasite to the celebrity culture is truly disconcerting. In some ways, my emotional response reminded me of the feeling I get while reading a Bret Easton Ellis book. The only difference was that I comfort myself with the idea that Ellis' books are fiction. Young makes it vividly clear that the truth is more disturbing than any fiction.

Eventually, Young's ability to find the humor in his actions and in the actions of others subdued my shock. Young's attempts to enter the "celebrity worship" lifestyle are hilarious enough. But even funnier are his attempts to impress Graydon Carter. An unspoken theme throughout the book is Young's desire to become Graydon Carter by emulating his career path: namely, begin one's career by insulting the celebrity culture, and then use the notoriety generated by those actions to become part of that culture. Yet, Young's actions around his would be "mentor" do anything but endear him to the object of his affection. It's tough not to laugh out loud at some of the stupid things that Young does in order to impress Carter.

In the end, I wasn't sure if How to Lose Friends and Alienate People was yet another attempt by Young to "crash" the celebrity culture. However, I really didn't care. Young's willingness to put his mistakes and outright failures on paper for all to see, without drenching the text in self pity, made the book enjoyable. It is this self-deprecating approach which makes How to Lose Friends and Alienate People an admirable, accessible portrayal of a lifestyle that most people will (thankfully) never experience.

This book had me in stitches. It's a hilarious look at the interior world not just of a deceivingly high-concept New York-based supermarket fashion and culture magazine, but at the culture of New York society in general. Young's biting and witty prose show both why he was kicked off the magazine, and why he was hired in the first place - he's devilishly insightful and never boring.

This book is for the rich-snob-hating, social-climbing bourgoisie in all of us (and if you didn't know you had a part of that in you, you'll know after laughing through the pages of this book). Young cuts fiendishly through the carefully built facades of famous editors, writers, and supermodels, and yet, you may be surprised at what you find at the end.

I guess what I'm saying here is: buy this book. You will not be disappointed. It's an enjoyable read, and delightfully illuminating.

Let's face it, the appeal of this book is to get a glimpse into the dirty world of celebrity and a glimpse inside the back-stabbing and self-centered society of the publishing world. Well, Toby Young delivers on the self-centered world, especially through his unsympathetic, egocentric and obnoxious self. This book turns out to be about an annoying writer and his rise and fall in the publishing world. Though Young does offer glimpses into the world of publishing and introduces some interesting facts, even these rare gems come across as Young boasting, or making an effort to prove that he's intelligent.

While reading this book, rather than finding an expose into an interesting world, I found an expose of someone I would have no desire to ever meet in person and who I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw him. If he were a horribly dispicable person it would have been far more interesting. Instead, he's just your average every day dispicable person who seems to have always wanted to make his own rules but found that he had to play by others' rules and he wants sympathy for that.

That said, I had to give it three stars because I did finish it, though I nearly put it down for good many times...besides, it got me annoyed enough to put this much thought into it, so there must be some worth there. Perhaps it's meant more for the esoteric world of those in publishing?

The book did indeed live up to its title, while I could identify with some of the author's views about life in NYC, I could not sympathize with him as a person, even though trying to sympathize with him was what kept me reading till the end, but, it did not happen!

These are well written ugly stories, with the author's humor and honesty about his own shortcomings being the only thing going for it...However, the constant name dropping, and the pretence to mask some characters while making it clear in every way who they were, was extremely annoying... His jealousy of his friend who "made it" is pathetic every bit as brutally competitive and toxic as any of those New Yorkers he spent so much time vilifying... none of Young's bitter words on that subject talked about the quality of that "friend's" work or his achievements, the only thing that counted, was WHO that friend-who-made-it "was seen to hang out with" from the celebrity circles.

As for Young's words on the women he had (or wanted to have)something with, they were described, more or less, like some "beefsteak" to be had for dinner ( the fact that he hadn't had any for a while did not raise any sympathy). According to Young, NY is made mostly of gold-diggers..that may have been the case in the circles Young was trying so hard to become part of, but there are all kinds of women in NY. NY-women, being an intelligent lot, probably saw through his "beefsteak-outlook" on females and headed for the hills..the fact that he was an alcoholic did not seem to register strongly on his radar as offputting factor, for, while he admitted his alcoholism, but towards the end of the book, he did not seem to see how it was responsible for much of the downward spiral in his life...

It is a pathetic story that is, however, well-written, but the saddest thing of all is that after all Young's attempts to convince the reader that some epiphany had happened at the end, the very last pages of the book show that no epiphany took place, that he was still that extremely competitive, sick bloke who never stopped feeling venomous bitterness at the success of "his friend", and never really "risen above" the "celebrity-centered culture" that he claimed to have seen through...

Rather than being a story where some major transformation has taken place, this story is more like some resourceful attempt to sneak back into the world of the "beautiful and famous people", only this time through the backdoor, or rather, more accurately, through the gutter...

Toby Young came from England to live in NYC and work for Vanity Fair. In short order he turned into a drunk, drove away friends, offended just about everyone at work and got fired. It's actually quite funny in places. Young was a self absorbed, shockingly boorish fool and he admits it in the book. On his very first day at Vanity Fair he shows up to work wearing jeans and a T shirt with a vulgarism on it. It never once occures to him that this might not be a good idea. Watching him stumble blindly through Manhattan's VIP land is amusing and horrifying at the same time. The only thing really wrong with this book is Young's inability to really understand why he blew it in NYC. There is a bitterness in this book that clearly shows that Young still doesn't get it.

I found this book a blast to read--a delightful peek inside the world of glamour from the perspective of someone who (like most of us) never quite belonged there. Through his experiences, Young reveals just what makes us worship at the altar of celebrity, then is vicious in tearing it down. I don't fault him for many of the criticisms that the book has received--that he's hypocritical about his love/hate relationship with all that glitters. These are obvious--what the author gives us is a look at his life and the lure of fame without a shred of self preservation. Don't buy this book as a treatise on meritocracy, but for its delightfully candid narrator and his exceptionally witty writing style.