Martin Mayer, an author, journalist and critic "of remarkable diversity who wrote more than 40 books and hundreds of articles for laymen that demystified lawyers, banking, thorny school problems and the raptures of classical music," died August 1, the New York Times reported. He was 91.
Describing himself as "an old-time freelancer," Mayer "churned out three novels; wrote columns for Esquire magazine; was a music critic for a British journal; wrote for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and a dozen other periodicals; composed reports for the Ford, Carnegie and Kettering Foundations; was chairman of a local school board in New York; and served on White House panels in the Kennedy and Reagan administrations," the Times noted.
After publishing his first novel, The Experts, in 1955, Mayer embarked on what he called the nonfiction writer's dream--"writing pretty much what I want to write, as I want to write it." His books include Madison Avenue, U.S.A. (1958), Wall Street: Men and Money (1960), The Schools (1961), The Lawyers (1967), About Television (1972), The Bankers (1974), The Builders: Houses, People, Neighborhoods, Governments, Money (1978), The Diplomats (1983) and The Bankers: The Next Generation (1997). The Times noted that one of his "most ambitious projects detailed New York's 1968 teachers strike" and led to his book The Teachers Strike: New York, 1968 (1969).
In All You Know Is Facts (1969), Mayer called writing for magazines a craft, but not an art. Gerald Walker wrote in the New York Times Book Review: "Self-effacing remarks, from a writer acknowledged as one of the best in the field. But he has a point. One doesn't read Mayer primarily for pleasure, or insight, or to be moved. One reads him to understand--to find out who did what, why and when."