A Party for the Dream Team of McCarter and Fairlie

Literary agent Jennifer Joel opened her home Wednesday night to toast her client Jeremy McCarter's new book, a collection of "essays and provocations" by British writer and Tory Henry Fairlie (1924-1990), who coined the term "the Establishment" writing for Fleet Street before bringing a fresh eye to America, where he lived and worked for the last three decades of his life.

"Bite the Hand that Feeds You" (Yale University Press) brings Fairlie's journalism back into the spotlight. It is the product of Mr. McCarter's admiration for Fairlie, and also of his fine judgment and diligence, all of which have earned him respect and gratitude from Fairlie's family. As Charlotte Fairlie noted, her father's best work would have been forgotten without this volume. The books Fairlie did publish, toward the end of his career, were not the best examples of his work, Ms. Fairlie said.

Fairlie was a lively and honest writer who knew how to throw a barb and did so most prominently in The New Republic, where he was for a stretch the sole contributor to the back-page column Diarist. His work deserves to be celebrated and studied. It is also worth celebrating the fact that a young writer took on this project (rather than one who worked alongside Fairlie -- perhaps it took someone who didn't know Fairlie personally to reckon with the work). In any case, Mr. McCarter, with the help of his ICM agent, could have devoted himself to a more self-serving book project had he desired one. After being discovered in the arts pages of The New York Sun, he moved to New York magazine to be its chief theater critic; now he is a senior writer at Newsweek covering a range of topics. But instead he chose to tend to another writer's legacy -- one that took years to sort through and organize.

"I hope Henry is with us to stay," Mr. McCarter said while raising a toast.

Mr. McCarter's involvement shows his humility and intellectual respect, two qualities that help make his own writing a pleasure to read. (Alas, they also make him abhorent of posing for a photograph. So be it, as you'll see below.)

Ed Agran, an American history professor, and Charlotte Fairlie, an English professor, both at Wilmington College

Jennifer Joel greets William Frucht, executive editor at Basic Books

The book, as displayed on Ms. Joel's dining room table

Jesse Oxfeld, an editor at Tablet magazine

New York sun alumni Charlotte Ibarra and Will Friedwald, who now writes about jazz for the Wall Street Journal

The blur of a good party where interaction trumps intruding flashbulbs: Jeremy McCarter, center right, in conversation.

Other guests included David Propson of the Week; Ron Hogan of GalleyCat and Beatrice.com; Chris Rovzar of nymag.com; and Alden Ferro of Yale University Press.