When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

When the Going Was Good is Graydon Carter’s memoir. Like most memoirs, it assumes a looser style than an autobiography. Whereas autobiographies trace the entirety of the writer’s life, memoirs take a more novelistic approach, focusing on a discrete era or facet of the writer’s experience. Memoirs are known for their use of the first person point of view, their narrative style, and their incorporation of personal anecdotes. There are a range of subgenres within the memoir genre, including the confessional memoir, the travel memoir, and the transformational memoir.

Carter’s When the Going Was Good is best classified as a professional and/or celebrity memoir, as Carter focuses on his rise to success and power in New York City’s magazine world. Similar examples of this genre include the memoir Personal History, by long-time Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham, and The Vanity Fair Diaries, by Carter’s predecessor at Vanity Fair, Tina Brown. The subgenre extends far beyond the confines of magazine and newspaper publishing, encompassing memoirs by professional athletes (Brittney Griner’s Coming Home), food-centric television personalities (Ina Garten’s Be Ready When the Luck Happens), and a host of others.