Here are some more: until last week, Joni Evans, 48, was publisher of Random House, a division of Random House Inc., which is privately owned by billionaire Si Newhouse, who also owns all Conde Nast magazines, including Conde Nast Traveler, which was run until last week by Harry Evans, 62, whose wife, Tina Brown, is editor of Vanity Fair, also owned by Newhouse, who competes with Simon and Schuster, which is headed by Richard Snyder, who was once married to his subordinate, Joni Evans, who defected to Random House not long after Robert Gottlieb left the Newhouse-owned Knopf to edit the Newhouse-owned New Yorker, which has been known to run sentences even longer than this one.
OK, short sentences. Last week The New York Times suggested on its front page that Joni was pushed aside in favor of Harry. This bit of news was practically enough to overload all telephone circuits in the provincial media village of midtown Manhattan. The only problem was that Joni and lots of reliable independent sources said that she jumped. Was Random House, which had dissembled about painful Newhouse firings in the past, actually telling the truth this time? It looked that way, but a few hundred motor-mouthed publishing types decided to discuss it further . . . over lunch.
When last heard from, Joni and Dick were fighting viciously in court over money and who loved their dog more. In happier times, Dick had shot a rattlesnake, which Joni told friends (who told the press) stimulated passionate sex. More recently, Joni was a success at Random House, publishing 18 best sellers so far this year alone. But she and her colleagues forgot that the 1980s were ending, and they paid $2 million for a tepid-selling sequel from Donald Trump. Tired of so much administrative work, Joni will now launch her own small Random House imprint, though she can’t think what to call it.
When last heard from, Harry and Tina were leading a British invasion that had publishing groupies squealing as if the pair were John and Yoko. Chewing over the fact that Harry’s daughter from a previous marriage serves as their nanny could alone run up a $150 tab at the Four Seasons. Harry is the only man in the world who has worked for Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger (as his book editor), Mort Zuckerman and Si Newhouse and lived.
After editing The Sunday Times and The Times of London, Harry wrote a critical memoir of life with Murdoch. Now it’s Murdoch’s turn to write his own memoirs–for Harry at Random House. Editors insist there’s absolutely no truth to the gossip linking Murdoch’s $1 million book deal to his crucial testimony at Newhouse’s recent trial, which helped save Newhouse a fortune in back taxes. All that lunchtime incestuousness can lead to such misunderstandings. In fact, Joni says she will write soon about her industry’s ceaseless rumormongering. For a Murdoch-owned magazine, of course.
