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with. How do you start your writing day? I go to the beginning of the text I’ve been working on and read through the entire thing, fixing as I go. I’ve got to add a thousand words. Are the experiences of writing a newspaper story, a magazine piece, and a book radically different? The difference is pace. You’ve got to move a newspaper story at a breakneck pace since the reader is only going to be with you for five minutes. A magazine story has to make the reader want to commit more time. If you get a magazine reader to commit to only five minutes you’ve failed. A book is something else entirely. Not to be too grand about it, but a book ought to alter the reader’s life, add to the reader’s life, in some fundamental way. You have a compact with the reader that if he gives you the time then something will be better for him. His understanding will increase, an emotional satisfaction will ensue, a cathartic experience will take place. A book has to make something happen. A newspaper story informs, a magazine article entertains, and a book has to move you. Do you use outlines? I’m not much of an outliner. The whole of What It Takes was outlined on the back of a placemat in a Greek diner on Sixth Street. I was trying to explain to my researcher how I’d structure it, with all the stories running parallel to each other. So for the next three years we worked off that placemat. Why do you like the profile form? I think writing about a human is the hardest thing to do. But it is the most satisfying for the reader because most people learn most easily through personal acquaintance. So if I can, in effect, introduce them to a person who shows the reader their world, it is a much more organic process than, say, a story by John McPhee, which is carefully constructed and impersonal. McPhee is fabulous, but his is a lot headier than my work. My work soaks in like one of those magic creams where you rub it on and it’s gone. It goes down so easy that the reader doesn’t know they’re getting it. Why are you seldom a character in your pieces? I’m never in a piece unless the subject does something with me that is revelatory about them. There’s no other reason for me to be there. I get my innings. I get my licks in. I don’t need any more exposure. For instance, when Ted Williams took me in after he was so happy about his girlfriend, Lou, that was an occasion where I had to be in the piece. I put a few “I”s in the lead so that the reader wouldn’t be startled when I popped up in the middle of the piece, when Ted finally opens up. Ted was famously guarded, so this moment when he opens up shows the reader the boy who is so dear underneath all the gruffness.
What kind of a presence do you like to have in your work? I’m the guy on the barstool who is telling them the story. And they’re in the armchair listening. As long as I can keep them from remembering that they’ve got to go home tonight, we’re good. My wife, who’s my best editor, says you can’t give them a chance to put it down. Because if you give them a chance, they will. And they may never come back. Not because they didn’t like it, but because there are so many other distractions. But if the last sentence they read got them something they’ll read the next sentence. How would you describe your theory of reporting? I’ve always said I practice the “feet” theory of journalism. That is, if you want to talk to an elevator guy about something that happened in the building last Tuesday, don’t walk in and ask him what happened in the building last Tuesday. Ask him about his feet. Because if there is one thing an elevator guy thinks about, it’s his feet. And if you want to get to know this elevator guy, all you’ve got to do is ask him about his feet. I’m betraying my age because there aren’t any more elevator guys. Can journalism lead to truth? Or is it simply another version of reality? I’m not out there busting my ass to give people just another “take” on reality. I’m out there to clean the plate. Once they’ve read what I’ve written on a subject, I want them to think, “That’s it!” I think the highest aspiration people in our trade can have is that once they’ve written a story, nobody will ever try it again. BY RICHARD BEN CRAMER: How Israel Lost: The Four Questions, Simon & Schuster, 2004 Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life, Simon & Schuster, 2000 Bob Dole, Vintage Books, 1995 What It Takes: The Way to the White House, Random House, 1992 Ted Williams: The Seasons of the Kid, Prentice Hall, 1991
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Table of Contents Title Page Dedica
Page 5 and 6:
To Helen
Page 7 and 8: Acclaim for The New New Journalism
Page 9 and 10: Preface I had neither studied nor t
Page 11 and 12: perceived as bizarre tribes one stu
Page 13 and 14: work is the spirit with which he pr
Page 15 and 16: for a movement than an advertisemen
Page 17 and 18: and reporting (the latter developme
Page 19 and 20: Crane did before them—bridge the
Page 21 and 22: Journalists have revived the tradit
Page 23 and 24: Sims, Norman, and Mark Kramer, eds.
Page 25 and 26: infantrymen in the army of homeless
Page 27 and 28: a marginal or strange subculture—
Page 29 and 30: “Disdain” is too strong a word.
Page 31 and 32: of the academy that I’d be assign
Page 33 and 34: Well, not really. I was never comfo
Page 35 and 36: sacred to me. I know that if I were
Page 37 and 38: expand on brief notes, transcribe q
Page 39 and 40: experienced Denver as a member of a
Page 41 and 42: history or policy. Or than when I
Page 43 and 44: Bruce Chatwin, anything by J. M. Co
Page 45 and 46: Freed from the constraints of newsp
Page 47 and 48: For his most recent book, How Israe
Page 49 and 50: Now I’ve known a lot of politicia
Page 51 and 52: gathering information. So the first
Page 53 and 54: I learned it in Baltimore when I wa
Page 55 and 56: How did they respond? They were won
Page 57: write anything down, but the conver
Page 61 and 62: earned him the moniker of “staff
Page 63 and 64: I want to understand the lives of p
Page 65 and 66: You haven’t done any celebrity jo
Page 67 and 68: I never know. I do know that I don
Page 69 and 70: When Children Want Children, I rent
Page 71 and 72: I like doing interviews over meals
Page 73 and 74: Do you believe journalism can lead
Page 75 and 76: Supporting himself through odd jobs
Page 77 and 78: the editor’s house, but it had a
Page 79 and 80: their activities, takes precedence,
Page 81 and 82: public policy, etc., play in your w
Page 83 and 84: How do you get people to ignore you
Page 85 and 86: American landscape to someone who h
Page 87 and 88: tried to kill him, and a drive-by s
Page 89 and 90: Has taking notes openly ever been a
Page 91 and 92: anymore. I trust my editors more th
Page 93 and 94: Do you see yourself as part of an h
Page 95 and 96: JONATHAN HARR In February 1986, Jon
Page 97 and 98: to have his application rejected. T
Page 99 and 100: Mostly I prefer to choose my own id
Page 101 and 102: young lawyers, so he was a natural
Page 103 and 104: is writing: creating something on t
Page 105 and 106: of the typed notes and put them int
Page 107 and 108: typewriter, it is between you and t
Page 109 and 110:
There is only one person who reads
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Do you believe your brand of journa
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narrative articles on topics that h
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Unprotected,” February 8, 1999].
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Public figures. Often when I write
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had been fired from the force after
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How much will you challenge someone
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easy for them to condemn him, and t
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“Off the record” is such an amb
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enormous amount of time on it. If y
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to remind yourself constantly that
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JON KRAKAUER Jon Krakauer’s pride
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party to the death of good people,
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identified a decent-size town just
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e stubborn and determined and, abov
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season lasts six hours and yet can
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journalism fellows who attacked me
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contentious, with everybody jabberi
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important passages. When I was on M
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I got back from Everest in May 1996
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contradictory. Although I may have
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JANE KRAMER Jane Kramer writes abou
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Kramer’s questions—Who has the
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Unsettling Europe. I think I must h
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How do you decide whom to interview
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How do you begin an interview? If i
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There are exceptions to this, of co
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I can pretend a stranger has writte
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I think it comes out of the English
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Europeans, Farrar, Straus and Girou
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Wolfgang Langewiesche, was a pilot
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society, and our own bewilderment a
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of the “normal accident,” in th
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going, and it gets really interesti
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What kind of a notebook do you use?
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from it freely. How do you start wr
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V. S. Naipaul is another writer who
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ADRIAN NICOLE LEBLANC There were ni
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guaranteed that the book would be w
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used to say. Also, the reader tends
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Sadly, variations on a theme. It’
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How much do you share about your pr
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Do you tape your interviews? Yes, b
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Do you write chronologically? Usual
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would have liked to include. Someti
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ought him into mild conflict with h
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were the ones who provided a truly
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economics of the game kept poor tea
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eporting. It presumes that the actu
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“Come with me while I scout baseb
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For example, I wrote all my New Rep
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the way I used to write. I liked to
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interested. It is a level of confid
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SUSAN ORLEAN New Yorker writer Susa
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Orlean and her husband, John Gilles
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What is your filtering process? As
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whether because of access or other
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Why frustrating? Well, when I hire
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little threads of who they are and
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I make clear I didn’t observe. I
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icher version of experience than me
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RICHARD PRESTON Richard Preston may
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The virologist told Preston of an o
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which I probably pursue five storie
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all agents from talking to me on th
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Level 4, but they won’t come out.
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I tell the story of how I found the
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techniques. When you’re interview
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and emotional environment all aroun
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I have to sort through it with the
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Any particular time of day you writ
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literary nonfiction is no different
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RON ROSENBAUM As a child growing up
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een eliminated? He began a historic
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When I talked about Doyle with Esqu
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No, I bring them along so that I ca
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What changed? I finally found a met
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Does exercise help? I used to get a
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fiction. I learn so much when I pic
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in California [“In the Strawberry
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heard Pete Wilson, who was governor
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What kinds of people do you most an
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pretty straightforward: I say who I
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Well, the drug dealers I interviewe
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editors would. I care about every s
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GAY TALESE Tom Wolfe once dubbed Ga
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Some critics accused Talese of bein
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great story. How do you decide a
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Okay, that might get you a whole af
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Where do you most like interviewing
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say, “I can’t do any better. Ga
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Honor Thy Father, World, 1971 Fame
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chief, judged that it came “close
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Raymond Chandler or Ross MacDonald,
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Are you always aware when you’re
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Time bureau in Atlanta in the early
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Do you negotiate ground rules in or
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I don’t argue about the rights an
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Yes. Before computers, I wrote by p
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Some have described your tone as un
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American Stories, Ticknor and Field
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Weschler attended Cowell College of
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aspire to be a part—which ought i
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me to them initially. This must mak
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I tend to pursue my own projects an
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When I do foreign reporting I make
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econcile the two?” Because of the
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of Death and the Maiden, which happ
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quoted my thoughts on that topic as
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The most important thing is to not
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Is there any particular place you n
Page 331 and 332:
Do you detect any hopeful signs? Th
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attracted the attention of William
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going, that is the angle I tend to
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dramatic terms: the wickedest man i
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speak on your behalf is key in the
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interview to be entirely “on the
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America, 1960-1984]. It is, essenti
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I have a very dear friend in Texas
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Truth is one of those subjective te
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1 Tom Wolfe, The New Journalism (Ne
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26 Preston, “The Fabric of Fact,
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Robert S. Boynton
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