Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin

by Mignon McLaughlin, Josh Michaels (introduction by)

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) was a short story writer and playwright with a rapier wit and an acerbic take on love, marriage, and friendship. Her aphorisms, published between 1958 and 1966, will appeal to everyone who appreciates this aristocratic, subversive genre. Not all of the collection consists of aphorisms, strictly speaking: some are simply brief reflections, brutally honest as they are clever, on McLaughlin’s own fears and foibles. Aperçus is an autobiography in epigrams of a shrewd, candid, entertaining, and troubled woman.

140 pages, Paperback

First published June 3, 2014

About the author

Mignon McLaughlin was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in New York City, where her mother, Joyce Neuhaus, was a prominent lawyer. Mignon graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1933 and returned to New York, where she embarked on a career as a journalist and a powerful and touching writer of short stories for Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and other women's magazines.

She worked for Vogue magazine in the 1940s, and was Copy Editor and Managing Editor of Glamour magazine in the 1960s and early 1970s. With her husband Robert McLaughlin—an editor at TIME Magazine—she wrote the play Gayden, which had a limited run on Broadway during the 1949 season. McLaughlin authored the first and second Neurotic's Notebooks.


She retired to Florida in 1973. She died in Coral Gables, Florida on December 20, 1983.

Reviews

[Matal “The Mischling Princess” Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prior to reading “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin,” I’d never read anything written the author before. Mignon “Mike” McLaughlin was both a writer and an editor who was fantastically witty and clever. A short biography was included in an introduction. Given that she has a few online biography pages, this introduction was excellent because it provided so much more information. I really enjoyed reading the author’s aphorisms!

[Miz Lizzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though I am only very tangentially related through marriage to Mignon McLaughlin, my main interest in this book was genealogical. The introduction is quite interesting for that aspect. The art form of aphorisms was also very intriguing. I'd never much considered it as a specific form of writing but I enjoyed its contemporary (to Mignon's time period) New York literary sophisticate vibe while being somewhat related in form to haiku, a favorite poetry form of mine. It is certainly a window into at least one witty neurotic woman's viewpoint (again as a NYC literary sophisticate) during the 1950s and 1960s.

[Ruth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book to read so much as phrases to savor, as one would a culinary feast. I've long loved McLaughlin's oh-so-quotable collection. This treasure is a must for lover's of language.

[Mizloo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to rate this collection of smart-ass comments from a 1960's writer, but since I found at least one repeatable witticism in each chapter, I rounded up the stars.