When the Going Was Good - by Graydon Carter (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! Named a Best Book of the Year by critics from both NPR and the New York Post!

"The voice of a man who tasted the best of the American century and still left the party early, with his dignity intact." --The New Yorker

From the pages of Spy and Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter's memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture

After working at both Time and Life and cofounding Spy, Graydon Carter was offered the editorship of Vanity Fair in 1992. He knew he faced an uphill battle--how to make the esteemed and long-established magazine his own. With curiosity, fearlessness, and a love of recent history and glamour that would come to define his storied career in magazines, Carter succeeded in endearing himself to his editors, contributors, and readers, as well as those who would grace the pages of Vanity Fair. He went on to run the magazine with overwhelming success for the next two and a half decades.

When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter's lively recounting of how he made his mark as one of the most talented editors in the business, further planting a flag in Los Angeles with the legendary Vanity Fair Oscar party. With his inimitable voice and signature quip, he brings readers to lunches and dinners with the great and good of America, Britain, and Europe. He assembled one of the most formidable stables of writers and photographers under one roof, and here he re-creates in real time the steps he took to ensure Vanity Fair cemented its place as the epicenter of art, culture, business, and politics, even as digital media took hold. Charming, candid, and brimming with stories, When the Going Was Good perfectly captures the last golden age of print magazines from the inside out.

Review Quotes

"This memoir was essential reading of the most joyful sort, with its evocation of a more abundant, irreverent and freewheeling journalistic time." --NPR, Best Books of 2025

"Yes, of course there's tea--or dish, as the old folks say. This is Graydon, after all. Deep, deep dish . . . Waltzing, stumbling, dining, wining and twerking through When the Going Was Good, Graydon Carter's memoir of his editorial glory days astride the New York Observer, Spy and Vanity Fair, are witty people doing anecdotal things." --The Washington Post

"Written in his signature gait and filled with glorious details." --Vanity Fair

"Catnip to anyone in publishing." --Financial Times

"Carter, a former editor of Spy, the New York Observer, and Vanity Fair, has been held up over the years as a force of style, both in his personal taste and in his expansive vision of creative work, which grew from his editorial experiences during a prosperous and thrilling era in American magazines. This winsome memoir is a recounting of that period, brisk, bright, and full of well-told anecdotes about celebrities, artists, and other power players in Carter's orbit." --The New Yorker

"I quickly . . . consumed it. The journalism stories and the character analysis, as Elizabeth Hardwick liked to call gossip, are first-rate." --Dwight Garner, New York Times Book Review

"When the Going Was Good is catnip for those of us still addicted to magazines." --LA Times

"Scintillating . . . This highly entertaining book has a good story on every page." --The Daily Mail

"Canadian journalist Graydon Carter learned the ropes at Time and Life before co-founding the magazine Spy. But he's best known for his work as editor of Vanity Fair between 1992 and 2017, the period that dominates his breezy memoir. There's Hollywood gossip, score-settling and tales from the era of limitless editorial budgets." --Monocle

"Carter's wry tone and hard-won insights make this a must-read for aspiring journalists and those who lived through the good old days of print magazines. It's a blast." --Publishers Weekly

"Carter chronicles the industry and its people with deep love and affection, and it's a story of discovering one's passion, persistence, and undeniably being in the right place at the right time . . . An engaging book for lovers of glossy magazines and the people who make them." --Library Journal

"[A] rollicking memoir and heartfelt paean to the big, glossy, influential magazines of yore . . . Carter's zestful accounts of his editorial visions and their implementation are fascinating, as are his vivid profiles of writers, photographers, and Hollywood stars. Carter's delight in the chaos, effort, stress, and exhilaration of his editorships generate the effervescence and depth of this enthusiastically detailed chronicle." --Booklist

"A page-turning, bighearted, self-knowing, anecdote-rich and often screechingly funny record of a life lived to the full. A great memoir by one of the great editors--and characters--of our time." --Christopher Buckley

"A tour de force--informative, insightful, droll, and delightful. I am overwhelmed by When the Going Was Good." --Gay Talese

"There is so much to savour in this enormously enjoyable memoir, but it's the Vanity Fair chapters--an indispensable 'how-to' edit a magazine, host a party, curate a dinner, and inspire a legendary stable of writers--that form the centrepiece and highlight of this fascinating ride. You emerge from this enormously enjoyable memoir with the feeling of having just left an unforgettable party." --Peter Morgan

"What a great read--but it had a downside. It served to remind me how unexciting, unremarkable, and uninteresting I am, especially compared to this Carter fellow, the charming, colorful, raconteur that he is. As Leon once said to me in a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm, 'That mothafucka lived a life!" --Larry David

"If you're at all interested in magazines . . . then you absolutely have to read When the Going Was Good, Graydon Carter's brilliant raconteurial account of having the time of his life as the editor of Vanity Fair." --Strong Words (UK)

"Gusseted by gossip and some good-mannered grousing about A-list folk including Donald Trump, Anna Wintour, and Harvey Weinstein (name-dropping is no bad thing in Carter's book), When the Going Was Good chronicles his journey from young Canadian pup to New York institution, culminating in his 25-year tenure as editor of Vanity Fair, during which he founded the now iconic Oscars afterparty . . . The book itself is a ride, a breakneck jaunt through Carter's early years." --Independent (UK)

"I was reminded of the extraordinary largesse involved in the publishing world back in the day, and it's one that Carter writes about with great joie de vivre." --Dylan Jones, The London Standard

About the Author

Graydon Carter is the founder of Air Mail. Before this, he was a staff writer for both Time and Life. He cocreated Spy, edited The New York Observer, and for twenty-five years was the award-winning editor of Vanity Fair. He is also the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning producer of more than a dozen documentaries and one hit Broadway play. He and his wife live in Greenwich Village, not far from the Waverly Inn, and have five children.