Author offers an intimate look at big names

Name any one, or two, or three, of four-score and seven celebrities from the 1940s to the present. It is a safe bet that author Sidney Offit will recall a telling, funny, or poignant encounter with him or her.

“Friends, Writers, and Other Countrymen,” Mr. Offit’s memoir published in 2008, spans more than six decades and offers 33 chapters, each richly populated with famous personalities in literature, the arts, sports and politics. It is a book that can be enjoyed as both an autobiography and an extended people-watching festival.

Methodical readers might wish to start at the beginning—circa 1946, when Mr. Offit was 18—and proceed to the end, which is the beginning of the 21st Century, when the author states he is in his 79th year “of scribbling and mischief.”

The book’s chronology is not strictly sequential, as Mr. Offit explains in his introduction. “My life is more defined by activities: involvements in family, organizations, publications,” he wrote.

For this reason, he has chosen to group his reminiscences into six major sections, in which readers with an appetite for anecdote can happily skip around, sampling chapters dealing with “Work and Other Entertainments,” “Games and Play,” or “Random Encounters.” There is also a section of fascinating black-and-white photos that might prompt one to look up the subjects. Or, one can pick names from the index and go straight to the page: Che Guevara, 66; Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, 104; Mickey Mantle, 132; Rachmaninoff’s piano, 26; and so on.

No matter which reading method is adopted, the stories are fun, insightful and 99 percent good-natured—even when Mr. Offit describes heated political or ideological debates. Not that the author is indifferent; He has graced many a metaphorical soapbox. But this memoir clearly shows he genuinely likes people and can agree to disagree with some, heartily but gracefully.

Born in Baltimore, Mr. Offit attended Valley Forge Military Academy for three years and entered Johns Hopkins University in the fall of 1946. “To me, [World War II] was already distant and romantic; I had trained for it and missed it,” he wrote. Although Mr. Offit reported that he was “not unhappy” at Valley Forge, his future was not to be in the military.

At Johns Hopkins, his aspiration to become a writer, as well as his liberal political outlook, developed apace. He joined the staff of the undergraduate campus newspaper and met Russell Baker, “a blond version of Gary Cooper,” and Alger Hiss, a former editor. He socialized with visiting luminaries such as Ogden Nash and Robert Frost. In a local bookstore, the renowned H. L. Mencken gave him invaluable advice, “Never relight a stogie once it dies on you.”

Seeking literary employment, Mr. Offit moved to New York City in 1951, where he lived with a roommate in the apartment of William Kapell and where he “met” the piano that had belonged to Sergei Rachmaninoff. A year later, he was introduced to his wife-to-be, Avodah. She was then a medical student preparing to become a psychiatrist; He was writing what he calls “pulp fiction.”

The romantic couple eloped and continue to live happily ever after, according to Mr. Offit’s biographical information. They currently reside in Manhattan and “within walking distance of their five grandchildren’s families,” as noted on the book jacket copy.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, Mr. Offit gained recognition for his first novels, and began teaching creative writing workshops at the New School. At his wife’s urging, he joined the Lexington Democratic Club, which happened to include numerous literary lights (Edna Ferber was one) among its members.

In the book, Mr. Offit speculates that his wife’s suggestion was made partly “to get me out of the house,” but his reminiscences show what a happy move it was for this congenial, gregarious “people person.” He was able to mingle with more celebrated “countrymen,” such as Adlai Stevenson, who “reigned as patron saint of reform Democrats.”

As an editor and writer for “Intellectual Digest” and other prestigious journals, Mr. Offit met international and often controversial figures. One charming anecdote recounts Mr. Offit making a deal with the revolutionary Che Guevara—the trade-off was two books of baseball stories Mr. Offit had authored for young readers for a box of Cuban cigars (then, as now, under trade embargo) from Mr. Guevara.

Beginning in 1975, Mr. Offit was asked to appear in a series of television debates on Channel 5 opposite Martin Abend, a well-known and quite forbidding anti-Communist and pro-Vietnam War commentator. Never easily intimidated, Mr. Offit went on to make more than 1,000 appearances over a decade, sparring with this “right-wing Savonarola.”

Also in the 1970s, Mr. Offit embarked on a project that has remained dear to his heart ever since, the George Polk Journalism Awards, given in honor of a reporter who was murdered during the Greek Civil War. Polk honorees over the years include many names that have become legendary, including Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Susan Sontag and David Halberstam.

Mr. Offit wrote of his experiences on both sides of the podium. “Tell me, Grandpa, is it better to receive or give awards?” an 8-year-old granddaughter once asked.

Pondering what the committee’s advisors would reply, Mr. Offit concluded that giving was better, “maybe because I’ve given and wanted to give more than I’ve received.” He also meditated on awards he would like to give, if he could “spread the glory.” His list of “virtual” winners includes two familiar publications: The East Hampton Star and Helen Rattray for weekly editorials; and The Southampton Press and Andrew Botsford and former Press contributor Fred Volkmer for local weekly culture commentary.

Mr. Offit told his granddaughter that giving awards is a “wonderfully selfish way to be generous.” In his latest effort he gives generous amounts of pleasure to readers with “Friends, Writers, and Other Countrymen.”