My Mistake: A Memoir

"Daniel Menaker started as a fact checker at The New Yorker in 1969. With luck, hard work, and the support of William Maxwell, he was eventually promoted to editor. Never beloved by William Shawn, he was advised early on to find a position elsewhere; he stayed for another twenty-six years. Now Menaker brings us a new view of life in that wonderfully strange place and beyond, throughout his more than forty years working to celebrate language and good writing. In My Mistake Menaker tells his own story, too--with irrepressible style and honesty--of a life plowing through often difficult, nearly always difficult-to-read, situations. Haunted by a self-doubt sharpened by his role in his brother's unexpected death, he offers wry, hilarious observations on publishing, child-rearing, parent-losing, and the writing life. But as the years pass, we witness something far beyond the incidental: a moving, thoughtful meditation on years well lived, well read, and well spent. Full of mistakes, perhaps. But full of effort, full of accomplishment, full of life"--