Magazine Confidential
If two new novels are to be believed, the magazine business hasn’t changed much in the last 80 years. Bandbox by Thomas Mallon, is set in 1920’s Manhattan, a bawdy valentine to the jazz age, and Bite by C.J. Tosh, set in present-day Manhattan, both portray the business as a booze-soaked, drug-fueled sexual playground where work happens between visits to the hottest watering holes, and the juiciest stories never make it into print. Both books are fast-paced, laugh-out-loud, fun reads that leave you wanting more. Both books are written with razor-sharp authenticity by magazine editors: Mallon used to work at GQ and Tosh is a pseudonym for two writers who still work in the business. Mix your favorite cocktail and indulge.

Bandbox by Thomas Mallon (Pantheon Books, $24.95) is the hottest men’s glossy in the country when the upstart Cutaway appears, edited by a traitorous former staffer. The war that ensues between the two magazines is full of fast-paced wisecracks, spying, double-dealing, sex and alcohol. Bandbox Editor-in-chief Jehosephat Harris is worried about keeping his job and the magazine he turned into an icon single-handedly, so his staffers pretty much run amok. When an editor tells him that the cover model (“the handsomest young man in New York”) never showed up for the photo session, he delegates. “Find his pusher!” bellowed Harris. “Call the morgue! Why are you bothering me?” Thus begins this runaway train ride of a story. Before it’s over we’ve been privy to grappa-enlivened editorial meetings at the magazine’s unofficial hangout, an Italian joint named Malocchio (Italian for: evil eye), and have met the staff, including the closet animal rights activist, the prizewinning writer past his prime and the copy editor determined to save him and jump start her writing career, the staffer who sleeps with everybody, the the newspaper vendor in the lobby et. al.
At some point some animals go missing, a scandal involving the mob and a judge and a restaurant comes to a head, and nobody even notices that the young kid who arrived determined to work at the magazine disappeared after a particularly hot party. Somehow deadlines are met, the war is waged, and Bandbox survives to fight another day.

Bite by C.J. Tosh (Downtown Press, $13.00) is conceived when hotshot entertainment reporter Samantha Leighton is suddenly fired from her job at a People magazine-like publication because of a sexy rumor that isn’t true. Everybody in the industry has heard it and believes it, leaving her unemployable, weeping over the injustice in her darkened apartment. When she finally goes out again at the insistence of her best friend Tom, an editor at business magazine, they discuss an idea they’ve fantasized about for years. What if they started their own lifestyle magazine? They quickly resolve the enormous problem of funding – Samantha comes from Park Avenue money and her parents agree to bankroll six issues. Samantha and Tom quickly bring in friends and co-workers to work for them and start planning. In between the celebratory drinks and mock-ups everybody has romantic dramas that threaten the launch, to hilarious effect. Will Samantha’s long-time crush on an elusive Indiana Jones type pay off? Will Tom be able to work with his brother, the newly appointed publisher? Will Liza the art director, be able to balance work with her Park Avenue social life? Will R.J., the outrageous sex columnist, get arrested? For the answers to these and other questions read this witty and hilarious romp of a story.