USA TODAY International Edition
Editor details ‘ Vogue’ glory days, wild fall
‘ Price of Illusion’ shares glam times, famous friends
Peter O’Toole, Lauren Bacall, Federico Fellini, Jeanne Moreau — these were a few of the luminaries Joan Juliet Buck would encounter in her youth. Famous people were a dime a dozen in her parents’ social circle. John Huston was her father’s best friend and her godfather; Anjelica Huston was like a sister. Buck studied dance with a former prima ballerina in the Imperial Ballet. Her first language was French. The family suitcases were from Gucci. There were nannies and chauffeurs. Her upbringing was privileged, peripatetic and emotionally damaging.
Born in 1948, Buck was the daughter of Hollywood producer Jules Buck, a domineering, troubled man (“My father knew that the key to success was the perception of success”) and Joyce, an actress. The author, who spent her early years in Paris, Beverly Hills and London, could have written a memoir solely on a childhood spent among celebrities, and on her family’s fascinating history. The material is rich. But in The Price of Illusion ( Atria, 386 pp., out of four), she eeee also tells the dramatic story of her years as editor in chief at Paris Vogue.
Buck offers sharp, candid observations of the remarkable people and places around her. Here is Uncle Don, her mother’s brother: “Don was overweight and easygoing, with curly black hair and a profile like Marlon Brando, and he was the only member of the family who never pretended that things were better than they were.”
When she lands a dream job at Paris Vogue, her life is enviably glamorous. Yet after being anointed in 1994 and enjoying a successful run, Buck suffered a bizarre, ignominious fall. She was fired and sent to rehab — though she had no addiction problem. She revisits the vicious rumors and backstabbing she suffered, without seeming vengeful or petty.
Years later, Buck finds her way back to the Conde Nast empire — writing features for American
Vogue — but the embrace proves short- lived. She is blamed for a tone- deaf piece caused by the poor editorial judgment of others, and is ostracized once again. The reminiscences of her Vogue days offer many of the book’s best passages. Even minor characters are rendered with precision, such as the “va- voom fashion babe” whom she runs into at the Ritz and will hire as her publisher: “Her face, the almost featureless oval of a Connecticut Wasp, was shiny with cream. We air- kissed.”
In The Price of Illusion, the author is an appealing protagonist who never takes herself too seriously, nor those around her. And even while savoring her success, Buck recognized its corrosive effects: “A froth of luxury coated everything, and the demands of inanimate objects began to eat my soul.” In the end, she recalls, “Vogue was my poison.”
When she is finally excommunicated by the Church of Conde Nast, the event proves humiliating, even maddening. Her identity is shaken to the core. Yet by the end of this exquisitely written memoir, Buck emerges triumphant — perhaps relieved to be in exile.