Newhouse.

For media junkies, Richard Maier's unauthorized biography of the secretive, enigmatic publishing tycoon S.I. Newhouse, Jr. is a titillating read. Filled with glitz and glitter, it is a rags-to-riches saga that offers a rare glimpse into the country's wealthiest and most influential communications empire, one which includes two dozen newspapers; 40 Conde Nast magazines, including the glamorous Vanity Fair and The New Yorker; Parade, the massive Sunday supplement; the nation's largest publishing group, including Random House, Crown, and Ballantine; and a variety of lucrative broadcast properties.

It is also a story about the tumultuous life and career of an obsessively shy, awkward man who suffered under a domineering father, but doggedly expanded his enterprise into a $13 billion privately owned company. Maier describes how, over the years, S.I., Jr., known as Si, transformed himself from a recluse into a powerful executive, an arbiter of taste and a potent force in the worlds of politics, journalism, fashion, literature, and art. (His modern art collection alone is valued at $100 million.)

Carefully researched and crammed with details (sometimes excessively so), Maier, a former reporter for New York Newsday, paints an intriguing portrait of the ambitious Newhouse clan and their rise from poverty in the early 1900s to the pinnacle of the New York jet-set society in the seventies. (Their acquisition of Conde Nast with its stable of hip, slick magazines like Vogue, Glamour, and House and Garden definitely added to their appeal.) Their ascent began in 1922 when Sam Newhouse, Sr. purchased a failing Staten Island newspaper to form the base of what was to become his mammoth Advance Publications. It reached its zenith with the hostile takeover of the prestigious New Yorker in the go-go years of the eighties.

Aspiring to be masters of the media universe, the Newhouses gained a reputation as masters of the bottom line, so ruthless in their pursuit of newspaper profits that they left a trail of fear and havoc in their wake. Working behind the scenes was the notorious Roy Cohn, Si's best childhood friend. Cohn, who bore the title of special counsel to the family and served as a political fixer, influenced various editorial policies. In the early sixties, JFK, over the strong objections of Bobby Kennedy, used Cohn to plant a favorable editorial about Congressman Hale Boggs, who was in political trouble, in his hometown paper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Cohn sought no quid pro quo, but hoped his intervention would help get Bobby, who as attorney general was looking into Cohn's sundry dealings, off his back. To Cohn's dismay, Bobby persevered.

During the Reagan years, Cohn used Parade to promote both himself and the president. First, he wrote a bizarre article entitled "You Can Beat the IRS" in which he instructed readers on how to fool the feds. As a result, the IRS filed a lawsuit against Cohn and his law firm. And to boost public confidence in Ronald Reagan's health after the 1981 assassination attempt, Cohn engineered a startling photo in Parade of the president vigorously lifting weights as if he were Charles Atlas.

Through another Newhouse property, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cohn, along with the mob, helped ensure Jackie Presser's election as president of the Teamsters Union. And when Si Newhouse wanted Norman Mailer to sign with Random House, it was Cohn who convinced the famous author to make a deal, even though Cohn and Mailer were from bitterly opposed political camps. Big bucks brought them together. To get what--and who--he wanted, Si, unlike his father, was willing to spend money. (Star editors enjoy hefty clothing allowances and subsidized housing.) Through a mutual friend, Cohn convinced the literary lion to write for Parade and, ultimately, to leave his longtime publisher for a $4 million contract with Random House. This well-publicized coup gave Newhouse the cerebral clout he was after.

Prone to suicidal depression in his youth and a drop-out from Syracuse University, Si Newhouse seemed an unlikely candidate to succeed the family patriarch. Donald, his younger brother, who flourished in the newspaper side of the business, was considered heir apparent, but after years of tortured self-doubt, Si finally found a niche in the rarefied atmosphere of Conde Nast. A workaholic who stil arrives at his office each day at 5:00 am, he managed to eclipse Donald after Sam's death in 1979; and through a series of bold acquisitions and risky start-ups, eventually established the largest communications fortune in America.

None of this was accomplished without sturm und drang and Newhouse garnered the nicknames "Si the Omnipotent" and "Lord High Executioner" for his series of messy firings. The list of decapitations is a veritable Who's Who of literary pooh-bahs.

Diana Vreeland, Vogue's legendary editor, was shown the door when the magazine's circulation declined in the seventies. A decade later, her successor, Grace Mirabella, discovered she had been axed when she heard a television report naming Anna Wintour as her replacement. Louis Oliver Gropp, the editor of House and Garden, learned of his dismissal while vacationing in California. William Shawn, The New Yorker's beloved chief, was eased out to make way for Robert Gottlieb, who was himself summarily canned five years later while traveling in Japan. Anthea Disney, the head of Self, knew she was history when Newhouse unexpectedly stopped by her home to break the news. Perhaps his worst decapitation was that of the veteran Vogue society editor Margaret Case. After 40 years on the job, at the age of 80, she went to work to find movers in her office. No one had told her she was fired. Distraught, she went home and threw herself out the window. "Change is change--it doesn't happen slowly," Newhouse once explained.

With no board of directors to report to and accountable only to himself, Newhouse rules with what the author calls "a velvet fist." He does so with flashes of brilliance and the instincts of a river boat gambler. He invested more than $75 million to resurrect the defunct Vanity Fair and turned it into the journalistic and social Bible of a generation. After two unsuccessful editors, he was willing to entrust this faltering publication to a cheeky and talented young British journalist, Tina Brown. But Maier reports that despite the hype and hoopla she created, Newhouse decided to pull the plug only nine months into Brown's tenure. By pleading for time, publishing provocative photos of the Reagans' dancing tete-a-tete and, even more famously, of Claus von Bulow in black leather on subsequent covers, Brown earned a temporary reprieve. Her own story on Princess Di, who was photographed in full House of Windsor regalia, boosted newsstand sales by 100,000 copies and helped convince Newhouse to stick with the venture.

Several years later, when The New Yorker had lost much of its luster, Newhouse once again turned to the resourceful Brown to energize the venerable publication; but surprisingly, the celebrated editor played no role in naming her successor at Vanity Fair. To her chagrin, Anna Wintour, head of Vogue and a Newhouse favorite, pushed Graydon Carter, a creator of the irreverent Spy magazine for the post. He was catapulted into her slot. The ensuing infighting, which centered on who went with Brown and who stayed at Vanity Fair, plus their competing efforts to outshine each other by giving ever-more-lavish parties and garnering ever-more publicity, is amusing to read.

Maier clearly states he is not a fan of the Newhouses' style. He accuses them of being the first to blur the line between advertising and editorial and launching such marketing gimmicks as "outserts" and "advertorials"; of puff pieces for advertising and sucking up to foreign dictators, movie stars, and politicians when it served their purpose. He charges them with promoting celebrity and gossip over social responsibility; with cleverly avoiding a $1 billion tax bill; and with secretly closing down rival newspapers when threatened on their own territory.

Maier focuses heavily on the Newhouses' clandestine activities, but despite his carping, the Newhouse story is one of immeasurable success. Si has earned the title, "the most powerful private citizen in America." He has enlarged, improved, and expanded his original legacy and, most importantly, ensured its viability for the next generation.