Genius in Disguise

Genius in Disguise is more than a portrait of Harold Ross. Ross is one of those precious few magazine editors whose essence so richly permeates their publication that to speak of the early years of the New Yorker without speaking of Ross is as unthinkable as Playboy without Hefner or Ms. without Steinem. Everything we associate with the sophisticated, urban magazine that refused to address itself to the “little old lady in Dubuque”–the eclectic (and sometimes obscure) subject matter, the obsessive attention to factual and grammatical perfection, even the visual style of the cartoons–was shaped by Ross. But an editor is nothing without writers and artists, and so Kunkel presents Ross as a team captain of sorts, seamlessly weaving anecdotes about the players into his rich portrait of Ross’s life.