April's Fooling No One
America's (Magazine) Golden Age, America's (Tech) Not-So-Golden Age, and the miniseries is so back.
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THE MAIN COURSE
When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter (with James Fox) | Penguin Press
There was a time, long, long ago, when editors edited and expense accounts expensed. This month’s book pick—former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s memoir—is the story of his journey from a childhood in Toronto (♥️🇨🇦♥️) to a perch at the pinnacle of late 20th-century American culture.
The memoir has just enough personal reflection (i.e., not too much), and more than enough exploration of the media industry before its power and influence were overtaken by the all-knowing algorithm. There are enough cameos and star-filled set pieces in Carter’s recounting to make flipping through with the help of an index almost as much fun as reading the memoir front-to-back.
But Carter’s overall story is worth reading straight through, especially as today’s media world bumps around in the dark, searching for a new normal post–advertising collapse—and for new ways to reach splintered audiences who trust corporate media less than ever.
The ways we find stories may have changed, scattered across screens and shaped by algorithms—but this memoir is a quiet reminder that beneath all the noise, all the corporate maneuvering and shifting trends, there’s still something timeless: the simple, human act of connecting to someone else’s story—of grandeur, of change, of warning, or of sorrow.
YOUR SOMMELIER’S PAIRING
Back in 2010, Facebook’s platform had been open to the general public for only about four years. It was still a place where people found old high school friends, kept up with the news, and laughed at cat memes (R.I.P. Farmville).
So, when it was announced that none other than Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross would score David Fincher & Aaron Sorkin’s movie about the founding of Facebook, Generation X heads exploded everywhere. Yes, that Trent Reznor.
The movie was phenomenal: breakneck pacing, brilliant performances, and—yes—that score. The music was so stellar that Reznor and Ross won an Academy Award for their brooding, ominous score to a movie about a company supposedly founded to connect people.
Fifteen years later, one of Facebook’s very first global public policy executives has written what feels like the sequel that The Social Network’s dark score deserves. It’s a book that makes the subtext of that film—and its soundtrack—literal text.
Wynn-Williams takes us around the globe as she (perhaps naively) works to ensure Facebook’s international growth doesn’t come at the expense of doing good in the world. In jaw-dropping set piece after jaw-dropping set piece in locales each more off the beaten path than the one prior, she recounts the surprising (or not-so-surprising?) ways the company sought to add users at—as Wynn-Williams might describe it—any cost.
While many of the revelations in the book are shocking—if not entirely surprising with the clarity of hindsight—the particulars provided by the author from deep inside the company’s inner sanctum are both fascinating and infuriating, making for a head-spinning, page-turning ride.
Pro tip: the audiobook is A+, no notes. The author is a gifted writer and storyteller—and she narrates the audiobook herself.
DESSERT
Best Books of the 21st Century (So Far) (Kirkus Reviews)
The century’s vibes could be said to be…off, but the books sure are great! Here’s a list from Kirkus of the best books of this (tumultuous!) century, so far. There’s not much to quibble with here (we stand our ground that one title in particular should be left behind in the first quarter of the 2000s, but we’ll never tell which one).
Why Men Should Read Literary Fiction by Alex Blimes (Esquire)
We were thrilled to be able to skip December’s Literary Men discourse and the lack of nuance or context that only a New York Times-commissioned, edited, and headlined article can provide. This Esquire piece centering readers—rather than publishers— in a discussion of what men do (and don’t, tbqh) read is far more thoughtful and enlightening. It probably serves as a better way to frame a conversation around if and how publishers can expand the market for elevated and literary fiction to a wider readership.
It would seem in a world in which AI slop runs amok but consumers have shown interest in paying more for premium experiences, publishing should eventually figure out how to broaden the appeal of the art of writing. Book clubs have done some of this, but their influence in the market is changing as algorithms amplify social trends.
‘Adolescence’ Makes Netflix All-Time Most Popular TV List In Just 3 Weeks by Katie Campione (Deadline)
The buzziest new show around the world on Netflix at this moment is a four-episode limited series set in the UK, without any bankable stars, and about a 13-year-old kid accused of murdering his classmate, and the fallout after the killing amongst his family, therapist, and the detective in charge of the investigation. It interrogates toxic masculinity and pulls no punches when it comes to sketching complex characters, and is hated by the usual suspects (who don’t seem to understand concepts like “fiction” and “irony” and “subtext," but one digresses).
Any one of these elements would be a challenge to sell based on an elevator pitch. It’s complicated to sell a limited series at all these days: movie stars (rightfully) command movie star-sized quotes for their services and marketing spend is amortized over just one season. And then there’s the matter of violence between kids—with a murder, no less—at a time when everyone seems to want to shut out the real world because it’s so dark.
And yet, Adolescence. Simply, it’s a story well told and well sold that someone (or many someones, actually) took a chance, saying “yes” rather than “no,” despite the lack of obviously algorithmic friendly elements. In a world of doubles, it’s a home run. And maybe, just maybe, the next Adolescence—a fresh, nuanced, and broadly appealing well made show—can point to it as evidence that it is possible to capture many different parts of an audience’s imagination.
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