Even the anecdotes about Brown are old, and though Bachrach appears to have obtained admirable access to a host of former insiders, they tell her nothing we haven’t heard before — the endless rewrites, the killed stories, the petrified junior editors vomiting in the toilets, the parties, the buzz, the blurring and even obliteration of the lines that are supposed to separate journalism, advertising, and public relations.

The problem is that Bachrach bills this as a tale of hubris — a peculiarly American tale about two immigrants who take over New York, inspiring fear, respect, and admiration, and who are laid low by their own overweening egos. Yet even by Bachrach’s telling, Evans had a fine, honorable career as an author and editor; by the time Zuckerman finally eases him out, he’s in his 70s and showing his age. Surely there’s no sin in that.

As for Brown, it’s simply too early to rule her out. Yes, she may be imperious and cold and ruthless and demanding beyond all reason. But she did save Vanity Fair, and, despite her profligate ways, brought it to profitability toward the end of her tenure. And if her years at the New Yorker were defined by such excesses as Roseanne’s stint as a guest editor, stories on dominatrixes, and the like, the fact is that she reinvented a dying, utterly irrelevant publication, turning it — as others have observed — into a sort of newsmagazine for the cultural elite. Her successor as editor, David Remnick, a more traditional journalist, has made it better still; but she’s the one who hired him, and the template he’s following is largely hers.

As for the monthly Talk, now two years old, it may be too soon to tell. Yes, it got off to an awful start. If Bachrach’s reporting is accurate, it’s no wonder. The Brown of that time comes across as a woman out of control: working around the clock, frazzled, and paranoid.

Judging by the current (August) issue, though, Talk’s not doing all that badly. No, it’s not a "combination of Slate and the New York Times Magazine," as Brown once ludicrously asserted, but neither is it as bad as its reputation. Talk is often derided as a publicity vehicle for Miramax, the Disney-owned movie division that is the magazine’s half-owner. But Planet of the Apes, whose star Estella Warren is shown on the cover giving a baby bottle to a chimp, was made by 20th Century Fox, a Rupert Murdoch company; and Jurassic Park III, which gets major play inside, is from Universal Studios, part of the French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal. The issue also contains a lengthy excerpt from David Brock’s forthcoming Blinded by the Right, which is published not by Talk’s book division (Talk Miramax), but by Crown — part of Random House, ironically.

The magazine also contains an eclectic mix of stories, such as a profile of Andrew Cuomo, a feature on Princess Stephanie (why?), a spread on Fidel Castro, Gerald Posner on Puffy Combs (why? why?), and a book review by Norman Mailer. In other words, a lot of not-great stuff, some okay stuff, and, overall, something for everyone. It may not be wildly successful, but apparently it’s working, at least modestly. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, its paid circulation is 619,259 — well below Vanity Fair’s 1,050,684, but not far behind Esquire’s 679,052.

This may sound strange, given that Brown is, or maybe was, the most public of women, but maybe what she really needed was to get out of the spotlight and just put out a damn magazine. Talk has given her the vehicle to do that.

And even if it doesn’t work, well, what of it? New York magazine media critic Michael Wolff last week wrote a piece in which — after he got a nasty little Tina anecdote out of the way — he perceptively analyzed the unrealistic expectations and pressures that have been put on Brown, almost certainly, in part, because she’s a woman. Wolff wrote that "creators of magazines create bad magazines. It goes with the territory. The most fabled among them, Jann Wenner, Clay Felker, Hugh Hefner, all made stinkers. They got laughed at but were spared the moral condemnation that Tina has attracted."

Tina and Harry has created a bit of a sensation in New York media circles, partly because Harry Evans has been sending threatening letters to Bachrach’s publisher. After New York Times reporter Alex Kuczynski looked into Bachrach’s claims that Evans used his position at the Zuckerman-owned Daily News to promote Talk and found them to be well founded, Evans even wrote a letter of complaint to Times executive editor Joe Lelyveld. Indeed, Bachrach portrays Evans as a staunch believer in freedom of the press who has nevertheless frequently threatened to sue his tormentors over the years.

But if there has been a backlash against Tina Brown and Harry Evans, the publication of Tina and Harry may start a counter-backlash. Friends of the couple (to read the book you wouldn’t think they had any) have been complaining to the New York Post about Bachrach’s alleged preconceived notions and unprofessional behavior (a charge she’s denied).

The New York Observer — whose editor, Peter Kaplan, was rumored as a replacement for Brown when she left the New Yorker — ripped Tina and Harry as "overcooked, unwanted." Media columnist Sridhar Pappu wrote that the book "could have the ironic impact of becoming Tina and Harry’s Behind the Music moment: a lurid, somewhat embarrassing warts-and-all treatment that, rather than ruining them, makes people perk up and start paying attention again." He observed: "It worked for Mötley Crüe. Maybe it could work for Talk."

"Whatever happened to Tina Brown? She was quite the up-and-coming figure," Bachrach quotes a London journalist making small talk at a party. "And we’ve never heard of her since."

That was just before Brown became editor of Tatler.

Dan Kennedy can be reached at dkennedy[a]phx.com.