Books in Brief
The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft by Robert S. Boynton (Vintage, 496 pp., $13.95) The new journalism isn't new, according to Robert Boynton's thought-provoking book. Also known as the literary essay and narrative nonfiction, new journalism had precedents in Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and other 18th-and-19th-century English and American writers. First used in the 1880s, the term "new journalism" described the blend of sensationalism and crusading journalism--muckraking for the have-nots--found in the New York World. In the 1890s, city editor Lincoln Steffens set editorial policy using what he called "artfully told true stories"--a good definition of new journalism.
Wondering how one tells true stories artfully, Boynton interviewed 19 nonfiction writers considered at the top of their form, including William Langewiesche, Gay Talese, Richard Ben Cramer, Susan Orlean, and Calvin Trillin, and asked them about everything from reporting methods to interviewing to writing and revising. Their answers showed that despite differences in work habits, all of the writers are obsessive and passionate about writing. And their articles often become best-selling books and award-winning movies.
Many cite the influence of the New Yorker's Joseph Mitchell. As one writer observes: "[Mitchell] manages to get all the marks of writing off the piece. You couldn't imagine him laboring over it--although he obviously did." Others cite John McPhee, and the book is full of his nuggets of advice, such as this: "Power and beauty emerge most often from things that are simple and clear."
Part history of the movement, part close-up of its practitioners, this book, which grew out of Boynton's attempt to demystify nonfiction writing for his students at New York University, makes new (or new new) journalism more alluring than ever. Read all about it.
--Diane Scharper
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl (Penguin, 352 pp., $24.95) What does it take to be a restaurant critic? In her third volume of table talk, Ruth Reichl, editor of Gourmet magazine and former restaurant critic at the New York Times, says what she values most is her anonymity. Once a critic is recognizable, their photo is likely to be posted in restaurant kitchens. To avoid red carpet treatment, Reichl resorts to a Lon Chaney-level of disguise.
First, she commissions a makeup artist who helps her mock up half a dozen faces, complete with wigs and dramatic makeup. For a wardrobe, she picks up thrift shop pieces. And to fill out her characters, she assumes new identities. At one restaurant she might be a dowdy matron. At another establishment she could turn up as an aging hippie. In costume, Reichl says she would be unfamiliar to her own mother (whose identity she sometimes appropriates as one of her characters).
But Reichl's love of food is not inherited. Her mother--"the Queen of Mold," Reichl calls her--refused to believe in the concept of spoilage. Her finest hour was a lunch she gave when 26 of the guests went to the hospital to have their stomachs pumped.
When her hackles are aroused by a disappointing dish, Reichl turns into the George Patton of foodies. The book's format includes a smattering of reprints of actual reviews--a bad notice can be really scary.
But when she is pleased, her approval boils over the top. The taste of poached codfish at New York's Union Pacific restaurant produces "a sensation both dizzying and exciting, as if you were flying and swimming at the same time." A passion fruit crème brûlée induces a similar effect. "I was in a wild garden with the wind blowing through my hair," she writes.
At one job, Reichl decides to pen two reviews of the same place: one as an ordinary civilian, the other in her professional role. The restaurant chosen for this bold experiment is the illustrious Le Cirque. The result is predictable. The ordinary citizen is snubbed and the critic is fawned over. So Le Cirque loses one of its four stars. And the critic becomes a celebrity.
--Martin Levin
Haiku U.: From Aristotle to Zola, 100 Great Books in 17 Syllables by David M. Bader (Gotham Books, 112 pp., $15) David M. Bader, author of 1999's Haikus for Jews, has now thoughtfully converted a hundred great books--his choice, not ours--from their door-stopping originals into 17-syllable, easy-to-swallow morsels for the polymath on the run. It's not so easy to distill, say, Thomas Mann or Michel Foucault into comprehensible 12-word sentences, while still retaining their sense and nonsense. But Bader does it with wisdom and, as you might guess, humor. Oedipus Rex: "Chorus: Poor bastard. / Oedipus: This is awful! / Blind Seer: Told you so." Remembrance of Things Past: "Tea-soaked madeleine--/ a childhood recalled. I had / Brownies like that once." The Importance of Being Earnest: "Earnestly posing / as Ernest, Jack learns he's named / Ernest in earnest."
--Philip Terzian
Great Moments in Acknowledgments
"Book acknowledgments always remind me of the Academy Awards thank-you speeches, without any of the entertaining drama of the winner crying, falling out of her dress, or tripping on the way up to the stage. To the reader, this section is a boring, perfunctory part of a book. But now having actually written a book and realizing just how sadistic and reclusive the process can be, I know that if it weren't for my rather large team of supporters, I would have never seen this book through. . . .
"To my incredible agent, Jill Marsal, it is because of your enthusiasm and dedication that these stories have found their way into print. You saw the diamond-in-the-rough potential of my book proposal and have been my champion ever since. I also want to thank my brilliant editor, Marnie Cochran, for giving me all of the latitude in writing the book that I desired and whose unwavering enthusiasm, energy, and vision for this project have made it what it is. It was also Marnie who invented the marvelous phrase 'Stay-at-Work mom,' giving working mothers a more empowering and positive identity.
"I also want to thank my mother, Brenda Bengis, my first Stay-at-Work mom role model. My mom was 'sequencing' her life decades before the term was ever invented."
From Wendy Sachs's
How She Really Does It: Secrets of Successful Stay-at-Work Moms (Da Capo)