Gardner Botsford grew up in a Manhattan town house under the benign eye of five live-in servants, a charming and cultivated stepfather, and a mother whose beauty and wit attracted admirers ranging from Harpo Marx and Alexander Woollcott to Bernard Baruch and Averell Harriman. Botsford went off to the inevitable proper schools (Hotchkiss, Tale), summered in France and on Long Island, married a popular and attractive girl, got an eviable job as a reprted on The New Yorker - and then, in 1942, everything came apart.

He was drafted into the infantry, trained as an infantry officer, and on D day landed with the First Infantry Division on Omaha Beach in Normandy. His chronicle takes us from the beach to the liberation of Paris, to the Battle of the Bulge, and finally to the Czech city of Karlovy Vary, which, in a comic, desparate ceremony, was surrendered in its entirety to him and a fellow officer by its German garrison.

The memoir's concluding chapters bring us back to The New Yorker and give us memorable portraits of such New Yorker ornaments as Harold Ross, A. J. Liebling, Mollie Panter-Downes, Maeve Brennan, Janet Flanner, and, of course, William Shawn, Botsford's longtime friend, mentor, boss, and, at the last, adversay.

?The word that perhaps best describes Botsford's memoir is 'graceful,' which characterizes not only the author's prose ? elegant and understated ? but also his treatment of difficult subjects....Botsford is a terrific storyteller, moving back and forth from traumatic recollections to casual anecdotes.? Carmela Ciuraru, Los Angeles Times

"A reader's dream: a book without a dull moment. Whether he's scrambling up a cliff at Omaha Beach, noting the 'pansies and cornflowers' between Harpo Marx's toes, or considering William Shawn's offer to succeed him at The New Yorker, Gardner Botsford's vigorous and charming High American prose never flags. If we cannot all live such an interesting life, at least we can have the pleasure of reading one." Earl Shorris, author of New American Blues: A journey Through Poverty to Democracy and contributing editor at Harper's

A beautifully rendered memoir by a longtime "New Yorker" editor whose life is forever changed by his experiences in World War II. photo insert.