Portrait of the magazine writer as a young boor
Now, in his new memoir, "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," Young tries to generalize his own experience into a portrait of a generation, a chronicle of a particular city in a particular era. He waxes nostalgic for an era of outsider journalism and makes sweeping stabs at the United States' claim to meritocracy (though it's hard to see how the rarefied air at Conde Nast could be extrapolated to a broader perspective). It's a grander journalistic gesture than he ever managed at Vanity Fair: As he admits, the $85,000 he made in a year and a half when he cranked out only 3,000 words made his perword rate higher than 's.And so the fact that Young doesn't quite hit the mark is unfortunate but rather beside the point. His sharp humor, fluid style and inside dish make his tale a gossipy confection the perfect Vanity Fairstyle take on Vanity Fair and the world it covers.Young arrived in Manhattan in July 1995, invited by VF editor for a onemonth trial. He installs himself in the stilltawdry neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen; on his first day of work, he turns up at stylish Conde Nast headquarters in Tshirt and jeans and receives Carter's notorious "seven rooms" monologue on the magazine hierarchy." 'You think you've arrived, don't you?' [Carter] said. 'I hate to break it to you but you're only in the first room microsoft office 2010 product key.' He paused vivienne westwood. . . . 'Believe me, there are plenty of people in this town who got to the first room and then didn't get any further. . . . There are seven rooms in total and you're in the first. Doncha forget it.' "The first month turns into a second Pandora Necklace, then a few more and a contributing editor's slot on the masthead. But Young shows a knack for getting things wrong. For one thing, he's a bit of a boor a name dropper and an unabashed social climber tresor paris, with occasionally appalling manners and an abysmal sense of timing tiffany blue nikes. Reading about his misadventures may be fun, but you wouldn't want him to buttonhole you over cocktails. (This is the man who turned up at professional fashionista ' wedding this spring wearing a kilt, telling the that his clan was "McFashion Victim tiffany blue nikes."Young tries to snare Manhattan girls by adding the title "Hon." to the name on his American Express card ティファニー. He engages a strippergram to celebrate a colleague's birthday . . . on Take Our Daughters to Work Day. He asks pointblank if he's gay lululemon sale; he breaks the ice with by making a bad joke about "Leaving Las Vegas." Along the way, Young manages to approach and alienate more celebrities than most readers will ever get the chance to offend. (The list includes not only Lane but also vivienne westwood, , media moguls Harold Ross and and, presumably, Carter.)Hovering between irritating and amusing, Young plays the selfeffacement card to exhaustion. It takes only twothirds of the volume to chronicle his checkered VF career, after which he moves on to other failures such as dating and drinking. (The book at times seems like a catalog of deadly sins. Lust? Check. Auden on social climbers). And he tells us one too many times about his resemblance to he may be chubby and balding, he suggests true religion outlet online, but he still looks like a movie star.So by all rights Young's downward spiral ought to be an exercise in schadenfreude (something he indulges in plentifully). But by the time our hero winds up fired from both Vanity Fair and the Evening Standard, alcoholic and alone, one is actually sympathetic. Disillusioned and dumped, Young confronts the fantasies he had nursed along:"For some reason, I'd imagined that Vanity Fair would be peopled by the modernday equivalents of , and . . . vanessa bruno. I naively thought that my irreverent attitude would delight my colleagues and that Microsoft office 2010 product key, after work, they'd invite me to their favorite speakeasies where we'd trade oneliners between sips of martinis. In fact, they just thought of me as a misfit, someone who had no place in a professional, office environment. "Young's palpable British accent and dogged persistence ultimately charms us chan luu;his naive adoration of all things American is flattering, and let's face it the gossipy brain candy he feeds us is addictive chan luu. So if his ultimate redemption stretches credulity, it also comes as a relief. In the end lululemon, Young is a bit like the inebriated raconteur who's last to leave your party: First you laugh at his stories, then you worry about getting him home safely, and finally you're just glad to see him go.Related：