George, Being George: George Plimpton's Life as Told, Admired, Deplored, and Envied by 200 Friends, Relatives, Lovers, Acquaintances, Rivals--and a Few Unappreciative ... | 
| Creator: Nelson W. Aldrich
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
Buy New: $17.88
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 315
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 1400063981
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.54
EAN: 9781400063987
ASIN: 1400063981
Publication Date: October 21, 2008
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Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: R20081114232523H
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Norman Mailer said that George Plimpton was the best-loved man in New York. For more than fifty years, his friends made a circle whose circumference was vast and whose center was a fashionable tenement on New York’s East Seventy-second street. Taxi drivers, hearing his address, would ask, “Isn’t that George Plimpton’s place?” George was always giving parties for his friends. It was one of the ways this generous man gave back.
This book is the party that was George’s life–and it’s a big one–attended by scores of people, including Peter Matthiessen, Robert Silvers, Jean Stein, William Styron, Maggie Paley, Gay Talese, Calvin Trillin, and Gore Vidal, as well as lesser-known intimates and acquaintances, each with candid and compelling stories to tell about George Plimpton and childhood rebellion, adult indiscretions, literary tastes, ego trips, loyalties and jealousies, riches and drugs, and embracing life no matter the consequences.
In George, Being George people feel free to say what guests say at parties when the subject of the conversation isn’t around anymore. Some even prove the adage that no best-loved man goes unpunished. Together, they provide a complete portrait of George Plimpton. They talk about his life: its privileged beginnings, its wild and triumphant middle, its brave, sad end. They say that George was a man of many parts: “the last gentleman”; founder and first editor of one of our best literary magazines, The Paris Review; the graceful writer who brought the New Journalism to sports in bestsellers such as Paper Lion, Bogey Man, and Out of My League; and Everyman’s proxy boxer, trapeze artist, stand-up comic, Western movie villain, and Playboy centerfold photographer. And one of the brave men who wrestled Sirhan Sirhan, the armed assassin of his friend Bobby Kennedy, to the ground.
A Plimpton party was full of intelligent, funny, articulate people. So is this one. Many try hard to understand George, and some (not always the ones you would expect) are brilliant at it. Here is social life as it’s actually lived by New York’s elites. The only important difference between a party at George’s and this book is that no one here is drunk. They just talk about being drunk.
George’s last years were awesome, truly so. His greatest gift was to be a blessing to others–not all, sadly–and that gift ended only with his death. But his parties, if this is one, need never end at all.
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| Customer Reviews:
Getting it Right November 5, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Nelson Aldrich, already a noted and perceptive writer, has done a marvellous job of creating this oral history of George Plimpton whom he knew well all his life. There are so many interviews with people who had disparate contacts, opinions, and experiences with George, that his joyful but complicated life really shines through. My wife, my children and I knew him pretty well,in a purely social way; I didn't work for him, didn't go out with him, didn't start a magazine with him and was determinedly just a non-lit pal. Thus,I was so enthralled by the way Aldrich covered the endless facets of George's life, weaving in the fascinating family tensions, the serious writing,the glamorous ladies,the incredible parties, and his more famous sports adventures. There is a wonderful lack of tidy sequence to the book, and that I can tell you was completely George. It's a surprising adventure for someone who wants to know a unique man, set in the cinematic background of New York in the last fifty years.
Geoffrey McNair Gates
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