num_pages: 688
description: A remarkable life and voice emerge from the journals, letters, and memoirs of Leo Lerman: writer, critic, editor at Conde Nast, and man about town at the center of New York's artistic and social circles from the 1940s until his death in 1994.Lerman's contributions to the world of the arts were large and varied: he wrote on theater, dance, music, art, books, and movies for publications as diverse as Mademoiselle and The New York Times. He was features editor at Vogue and, briefly, editor in chief of Vanity Fair. He launched careers and trends, exposing the American public to new talents, fashions, and ideas.He was a legendary party host as well, counting Marlene Dietrich, Maria Callas and Truman Capote among his intimates. Cary Grant, Jackie Onassis, Isak Dinesen and Margot Fonteyn were part of his larger circle. But his personal accounts and correspondence reveal him also as having a full private life, mourning the emigre world of 1930s and 1940s New York City, reflecting on being Jewish and an openly homosexual man. He offers a social and emotional history.
language: English
title: The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman
titlecomplete: The Grand Surprise: The Journals of Leo Lerman
genres: Biography, New York, Memoir, Diary
ratings_count: 57
awards: awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Stonewall Book Award
category: Non-Fiction, awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Lambda Literary Award
category: Non-Fiction
publisher: Knopf