It seems a safe assumption that lots of Denver Post readers who peruse the Sunday book reviews also consume magazines. That is relevant to this review because Victor S. Navasky’s memoir is as much an autobiography of The Nation magazine as it is about his fascinating life.
The Nation, generally described as a magazine of opinion and reporting with a liberal political slant, has been around since 1865. It loses money but adds immeasurably to informed debate about public life across the United States and across the globe.
After becoming the first in his family to attend college, founding a satire magazine called the Monocle, working for The New York Times and writing a book about the U.S. Justice Department under John F. and Robert Kennedy, Navasky became editor of The Nation in 1978. Later, he raised money to purchase the magazine, beginning a stretch as publisher that continues today.
Navasky’s memoir works well on three levels: a tour of his own life; a collection of anecdotes about the famous and infamous; and an easy-to-digest textbook about magazine journalism within the United States, with an emphasis on journals of political opinion.
To casual magazine readers, Navasky is probably best known as the butt of Calvin Trillin’s characterizations. Trillin, that incomparable blend of investigative reporter, food writer, composer of doggerel, novelist and humorist, started writing for The Nation with the understanding that he could say whatever he wanted about the editors. Because of The Nation’s annual financial losses, it paid writers poorly. Trillin knew that going in, but could not resist telling readers about the “wily, parsimonious Victor S. Navasky, who paid in the high two figures.”
Navasky’s account of his life shows him to occasionally fit the description of “wily,” to occasionally fit the description of “parsimonious.” Far more often, however, he fits the description of intelligent, committed to truth and generous in spirit.
The anecdotes about the famous and infamous are numerous and mostly interesting. One of the best is set at a dinner with the husband-wife acting duo Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Navasky, trying to raise enough money not only to purchase The Nation but also to make it solvent, is planning to ask Newman and Woodward to invest. The dinner starts out awkwardly but ends well. The four-page account is sure to delight many readers.
The highest value of the book is its informed discussion about why journals of opinion almost always lose money in the United States, how the U.S. Postal Service and the Internal Revenue Service play vital roles in whether such magazines can survive, and what dedicated readers must do if they value such magazines.
Navasky is no idealist. He understands that magazines such as The Nation, New Republic, Progressive and National Review are read primarily by the elite. “Doesn’t the fact that these journals are of, by and for (the cultural elite) render them inappropriate vehicles for building a truly democratic culture?” he asks, knowing his answer.
Part of the answer is that the cultural elite is important to society, just as trash collectors and illegal immigrants following the harvests are important to society. Another part of the answer is the journals of opinion exist primarily to hold the powerful inside government and corporate America accountable. There is, arguably, no higher calling.
Steve Weinberg writes magazine features and books from Columbia, Mo., where he also teaches part-time at the University of Missouri Journalism School.
