cover image Manhattan Passions: True Tales of Power, Wealth, and Excess

Manhattan Passions: True Tales of Power, Wealth, and Excess

Ron Rosenbaum. Beech Tree Paperback Book, $15.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-688-06612-3

These profiles, reprinted from Manhattan, inc., offer a brilliant group portrait of New York City's rich and famous of the 1980s, even though some of the entries are a bit lackluster. Rosenbaum, contributing editor for Esquire and Manhattan, inc., is somewhat handicapped in his interviews because it seems that he gets to like most of his subjects, so he restrains his questions even with exceedingly vacuous folk, especially certain TV people. There are admiring portraits of ""society dissidents'' Felix and Elizabeth Rohatyn, adman Jay Chiat and Gov. Mario Cuomo. Builder Donald Trump, editor Helen Gurley Brown and automation specialist John Diebold come across more critically, and the most dramatic moment arrives when Malcolm Forbes shows Rosenbaum the door. (February 24)