The Tina Brown Diaries

“There is no such thing as a succès d’estime in America. That’s why it is a French phrase.”

Tina Brown never lacked for success in the American fame-and-money sense of the word. Yet for all the acclaim that has come the way of this legendary magazine editor, Brown has also been persistently underestimated. Brown observes of herself: “The perception of me is flashy, fast, and scandalous.” Now Brown has published a memoir of her spectacular journalistic career, based on the diaries she kept during her tenure as the editor of Vanity Fair from 1984 through 1992. The book has gained praise, yet even the praise often retains the familiar grudging character accorded to Brown’s editorial accomplishments. As a reviewer wrote in The New Yorker (a magazine that owes its existence to Brown’s rescue from a readership collapse under her two predecessors): “Brown’s legacy remains controversial not because her success is in question but because, for some, too much was lost in her kind of success.”

Brown’s new book offers