SOURCE: Friedenberg, Edgar Z. “Du côté de chez Podhoretz.” New York Review of Books 10, no. 2 (1 February 1968): 11-13.

In the following review, Friedenberg compliments Podhoretz's “illuminating” recollections of his rise in wealth, fame, and social stature in Making It but notes that the memoir lacks any significant description of Podhoretz's family life.

“For taking my career as seriously as I do in this book. I will no doubt be accused of self-inflation and therefore of tastelessness,” Norman Podhoretz writes in the Preface to Making It. “So be it. There was a time when to talk candidly about sex was similarly regarded as tasteless—a betrayal of what D. H. Lawrence once called ‘the dirty little secret.’ For many of us, of course, this is no longer the case. But judging by the embarrassment that a frank discussion of one's feelings about one's own success, or the lack of...