There's probably no woman in America who is as famous--or controversial--as Martha Stewart. In Martha Inc. Christopher Byron gets past the public persona to tell how "the quiet little girl from the house on Elm Place" became the "richest self-made businesswoman in America." While Byron acknowledges that Stewart has a good side, there's not much evidence of it here; much of the book focuses on the darker aspects of Stewart's private life that were first popularized in Jerry Oppenheimer's mean-spirited Just Desserts. Unlike Oppenheimer's account, however, Byron keeps the mudslinging in check by also chronicling her amazing business success as "one of the most potent and effective brands in the history of American marketing." He details her relationships with Kmart, Group W, and Time-Warner, noting that her maneuvering to buy her company back from Time-Warner was "easily the greatest financial coup in the history of American publishing." The result is an interesting and often scandalous story of a woman who proves to be far more complicated than the image her media empire projects. --Harry C. Edwards

FROM OUR EDITORS

Comedy shows satirize her domestic craftiness, but no one can belittle the business genius of Martha Stewart. This trend-setting entrepreneur is one of the most successful self-made business owners in our history, ringing up a net personal worth of nearly $2 billion. Veteran business journalist Christopher Byron explains how this former Connecticut caterer has created a multimedia merchandising empire that even Wall Street envies.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

From housewife to billionaire CEO, Martha Stewart is not just the businesswoman with the Midas touch, she is also a lightening rod for many of the most important and controversial social and economic issues of post-WWII American life.

In the unauthorized Martha Inc.: The Incredible Story of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, business writer and columnist Christopher Byron traces Martha's journey from the troubled world of a working class family in New Jersey to the pinnacle of fame and power as the head of the billion dollar business bearing her name. In Martha Inc., Byron shows that the great irony in Martha's triumph is that she has grown to global fame by celebrating a domestic life she never actually knew. Out of an imagined bliss, Martha created a media and merchandising empire devoted to the celebration of home, food, and family.

SYNOPSIS

Business and finance writer Byron traces Stewart's transformation from a working class New Jersey child to a housewife and to a billionaire CEO of a corporation with her name in it. Earlier photographs are family snapshots; later ones are publicity shots. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Economist

Studying the two faces of Martha makes for a good, if opinionated, read.

New York Times

Mr. Byron will not disappoint those who crave even more evidence of [Martha's] excess.

New Yorker

Though gleefully heralded in the press as a hatchet job, this biography of Martha Stewart turns out to be surprisingly evenhanded.

Wall Street Journal

...more than perfunctory kudos go to Christopher Byron for assembling so much information about his subject, and a few more pats on the back for presenting it in so readable a form.

USA Today

...it's clear [Byron] is a fan of Stewart's business acumen...[the book is] a riveting twist on an old story. Read all 13 "From The Critics" >

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