The subtitle of this irreverent memoir carries a special meaning for those who know about Bellows's journalism career—he did not "save" the three first-rate newspapers by working for them. Rather, he influenced their content by working against them—at the New York Herald Tribune, the Washington Star
and the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, now all defunct. Bellows typifies the notion of editor as idea factory: he pioneered a literary style of journalism, with Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin as the youthful exemplars; he launched a celebrated political gossip column—Diana McLellan's The Ear—at the Star; and he began treating the world of entertainment as front-page news in Los Angeles. Now in his eighth decade, Bellows tells of his early years in a well-to-do Ohio family, his WWII service, and his almost random choice of a journalism career, which brought him not only to newspapers but also to television and the Internet. Every chapter is filled with boxed asides that some readers will relish—William Shawn's letter to Trib
publisher "Jock" Whitney in response to Tom Wolfe's infamous lambasting of the New Yorker,
for example—but too many are tributes to Bellows from the likes of Willie Morris, Gail Sheehy and Art Buchwald. Sometimes witty, other times simply self-congratulatory, the book is not great literature, but the writing is filled with verve. Bellows obviously enjoyed himself at the office. Journalists, especially those of Bellows's generation or those who recall his legendary reputation, are quite likely to read this memoir all the way through; and young journalists might learn a thing or two from his war stories, but it's hard to see a larger audience being drawn to these reminiscences.B&w photos. (Apr.)
