Lillian Ross

"In the spring of 1950, when New Yorker staff writer Lillian Ross heard that John Huston was planning to make a film of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, she decided she would follow the movie's progress "in order to learn whatever I might learn about the American motion-picture industry." The result was the classic book Picture."--BOOK JACKET.

"From ... New Yorker journalist Lillian Ross-- a stunning collection of iconic New Yorker pieces"--

New Yorker writer Lillian Ross tells a love story of the passionate life she shared for forty years with William Shawn, The New Yorker's famous editor. Shawn was married, yet Ross and Shawn created a home together a dozen blocks south of the Shawns' apartment, raised a child, and lived with discretion. Their lives intertwined from the 1950s until Shawn's death, in 1992. Ross describes now they met and the intense connection between them; how Shawn worked with some of the best writers of the period; how, to escape their developing liaison, Ross moved to Hollywood, and there wrote the famous pieces that became Picture, the classic story of the making of a movie - John Huston's The Red Badge of Courdge - only to return to New York and to the relationship.

Ruthless might as well be Gray Bennett's middle name. When the renowned Washington, D.C., insider talks, powerful people listen. But Gray hasn't come home to Saranac Lake to play politics. Or play at all. A tragedy has shaken the unshakable Gray Bennett to his hardened core. And so has the most unlikely of women. The mousy redhead who used to run around the Moorehouse B and B--the one he never noticed--is now all fiery hair and lush curves. But sweet Joy Moorehouse is too innocent for a cynic like him. So Gray won't let himself lay a hand on her ... until the night he can no longer resist the woman she has become. That's when he discovers a secret that leaves him gasping for breath--and wanting more.

"For half a century, Lillian Ross has been writing remarkable and timeless journalism for The New Yorker. Her spirited, funny, factual short stories in The Talk of the Town and her unforgettable profiles and other long pieces have won her a legion of admirers. Many credit The New Yorker for the inventive, reportorial breakthroughs that have come to be called literary journalism, and Ross has been an integral part of its traditions. Her books Picture and Portrait of Hemingway were recently listed as two of the Twentieth Century's 100 best works of journalism, and Hemingway himself called Picture "much better than most novels."". "With panache, wit, and her own inimitable style, Lillian Ross discusses the questions of what makes a good reporter and what constitutes good journalism. Her years of practicing the art have provided her with much to say about these questions and nowhere is this in better evidence than in her own work - the pieces and profiles long recognized and admired for their freshness, originality, sharpness, humor, and truth. Excerpted here, along with her own commentary, are such classics as "Come In, Lassie!" her first, never before republished piece on Hollywood; her profiles of Francis Coppola, Robin Williams, Adlai Stevenson, John Huston, and Tommy Lee Jones; her two portraits of the Miss America contest - the first one published in 1949, the second fifty years later; and many others."--BOOK JACKET.