Vanities shared

Former editor Graydon Carter takes us behind the velvet rope

- BY DYLAN JONES

When the Going Was

Good Graydon Carter

Magazines, good magazines, are all about expectation, and when you know that your readers have high expectations, as an editor that's an incredible privilege.

Graydon Carter, like his predecessor Tina Brown, was a great editor of Vanity Fair, and the expectations of his readership were huge. They demanded a lot.

It was actually a perfect match, as the expectations Carter had for the title were equally grand, and I think it's fair to say he delivered, time and time again. Carter was a colossus and should be acknowledged as such. The trajectory is linear: born Canadian, he can't wait to get to the big city, reinventing himself brilliantly through Spy (a snarky New York version of Private Eye), The New York Observer (a sassy weekly paper) and finally, his holy grail, Condé Nast's Vanity Fair, where he ruled supreme.

Having expertly jumped ship from Condé Nast, and having successfully set up his digital newsletter Air Mail (which in many people's eyes took the Vanity Fair audience with it), Carter has now taken the time to write his book. I don't blame him. Graciously, he doesn't appear to have wanted to settle too many scores, but instead offers a slow-mo peek behind the velvet rope.