A Life of Privilege, Mostly

Gardner Botsford grew up in a Manhattan town house under the benign eye of five live-in servants, a charming and cultivated stepfather, and a mother whose beauty and wit attracted admirers ranging from the statesman Averell Harriman, to comic genius Harpo Marx. Botsford attended Yale, summered in France and on Long Island, married a popular and attractive girl and won an enviable job as a reporter on The New Yorker - and then, in 1942, his life of privilege was rudely interrupted. Drafted into the infantry, he trained as an officer and on D-day landed with the First Infantry Division on Omaha Beach in Normandy. He went on to witness the liberation on Paris (by going AWOL) and to fight in the Battle of the Bulge. Back at The New Yorker, Botsford was made an editor, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1982. A Life of Privilege, Mostly concludes with a series of memorable vignettes about life on the magazine and about such New Yorker ornaments as A. J. Liebling, Maeve Brennan, and William Shawn, Botsford's long-time friend, mentor, boss, and, at the last, adversary.