How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (memoir) to sue him) and "Vanity Fair"'s own Graydon Carter. Young also describes awkward run-ins with American celebrities including Nathan Lane, Mel Gibson and Diana Ross. Throughout the book, Young describes being tormented by his friend "Alex de Silva" (speculated to be Sacha Gervasi), a former colleague of Young's who manages to succeed in America in every way that Young does not. The title of Young's book is a parody of the title of Dale Carnegie's 1937 perennial bestseller, "How to Win Friends and Influence People"; a parody by Irving Tressler titled "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" was also
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (memoir) into more of a straightforward romantic comedy. Young wrote a 2006 sequel, "The Sound of No Hands Clapping", which chronicles his failure as a Hollywood screenwriter in the years after he left New York. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (memoir) How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2001) is a memoir by Toby Young about his failed five-year effort to make it in the United States as a contributing editor at Condé Nast Publications' "Vanity Fair" magazine. The book alternates Young's foibles with his ruminations about the differences in culture and society between the United States and England,