The Only Girl:

My Life and Times on the Masthead of Rolling Stone

BY ROBIN GREEN

Robin Green wasn’t on the masthead at Rolling

Stone for a long time, but she had a good time while there. Her memoir details many aspects of her life, but emphasizes the impact that her stint at the titular magazine had. Nearly 50 years on, it’s strange to read about her arrival, when she got a job by walking into the office in a mini-skirt and cool jacket with a dog in tow.

From there, she landed cover stories and profiles of controversial pop culture heroes from Dennis Hopper to David Cassidy. Working at the dawn of “New Journalism,” Green shares fascinating anecdotes from behind the scenes of interviews, though they often expose her “I have no idea what I’m doing” approach to reporting. That method proves to be her downfall when publisher/founder Jann Wenner kicks her off the masthead after refusing to turn in a piece on Robert F. Kennedy’s kids. (Green claims it would have been wrong to write the piece because she slept with Bobby Kennedy, Jr. — then a college freshman.)

Occasional credit is given to others for expanding the role of women in journalism and music, like when Marianne Partridge was brought on as a copyeditor in 1974, and carved out a female-run space in a copyediting and fact-checking department, but Green downplays accusations that there was any glaring sexism in the Rolling Stone offices. “If there was sexism, it was in the novelty of having me there, a chick writer,” she writes at one point, rather bafflingly. Her rose-tinted views of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll at Rolling Stone and beyond simply ring tone-deaf these days — especially given the past year in the film and music industries. (Little, Brown and Company)