Much of the book is devoted to anecdotes about his best-known colleagues, such as cartoonists Peter Arno, Charles Addams, and James Thurber; writers Truman Capote, John Updike, S.J.

Perelman, and John O'Hara; critics Wolcott Gibbs and Robert Benchley; and editors Katharine White, Harold Ross, and William Shawn.

[4] Gill also describes Shawn's well-known prudery, including his reactions to the phrase "cow paddies" and to Henry Green's inspiration for his novel Loving,[5] yet refrains from mentioning that for many years Shawn was leading a double life, with a wife and children in the suburbs and a mistress (Lillian Ross, a colleague who later wrote about the affair) and stepson in the city.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt wrote in The New York Times Book Review that "Mr. Gill kept me in a continual state of mirth", adding that Gill's barbs against his colleagues "are more like a cloud of affectionate bumble bees—these paragraphs full of facts: they settle everywhere and sting all.

[11] Gill wrote in his introduction to the 1987 edition (which was also printed in The New York Times)[12] that Katharine White wept for two days over his portrayal of her, which he defends as accurate.