June 22, 1973

The New Journalism

By MICHAEL WOOD

he title suggests a long essay by Tom Wolfe, accompanied by samples of what the essay is about. THE NEW JOURNALISM What we get are three short Wolfe essays and a Wolfe By Tom Wolfe. appendix, adding up to some 49 pages, followed by 339 With an anthology pages of essays and excerpts. A clear case of the nose edited by Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson. wagging the dog. Well, wagging anyway. The dog seems fairly unperturbed. The book's 23 pieces include predictable but attractive items like passages from Capote's "In Cold Blood," Mailer's "The Armies of the Night," Plimpton's "Paper Lion," Thompson's "The Hell's Angels" and McGinniss's "The Selling of the President 1968"; like snatches of Wolfe himself. But then there is also Rex Reed on Ava Gardner, Michael Herr on Khesanh, Joan Didion on the Miller murder case in California, Joe Eszterhas on the Missouri killings of Charlie Simpson, Terry Southern on the Dixie National Baton Twirling Institute in Mississippi. The writing is remarkable, almost without exception, and if this is the New Journalism, one can hardly be against it. But is it? Wolfe doesn't like the label much but, labels apart, is there even anything there to be given a name at all? Do these writers have anything in common beyond the time and the country they live in, a certain insistence on their own personalities and a willingness to do a lot of legwork for a story? Is that enough? I think it's not, but there may be more. Wolfe thinks it's primarily a question of technique, and lists, rather academically, the four basic devices of the school: scene-by-scene construction, "resorting as little as possible to sheer, historical narrative"; lots of dialogue; a marked point of view within the story, often not that of the narrator but that of a character, reconstructed from tapes or interviews or letters or diaries; and the recording of details of what Wolfe calls "status life"--"the entire pattern of behavior and possessions through which people express their position in the world or what they think it is or what they hope it to be." These seem bleak, unpromising reductions, and the book happily defeats the expectations they are likely to set up. In any case, Wolfe's heart is not in it, because he is after bigger, more polemical game. He wants a fight on two fronts, against the old journalism and above all against the novel. Against the old journalism for its pose of meek, fake, cultured

objectivity, the hush in its voice, its "pale beige tone." And against the novel because it has turned its back on the fertile fields of social manners and mannerisms, and gone in for myth and fable. I'm entirely in favor of the attack on the old journalism, and I think it's true that novelists have been a bit eager to give up on the shared, observable world. But Donald Barthelme covers very much the same ground as Wolfe himself, and why should one not apply the structure and tone of a myth to a minutely observed reality? Wolfe seems to think, against all the evidence and against his own brilliant practice, that an attention to the real world can be guaranteed only by the rather rickety narrative structures of the old realists. He also seems to think, curiously enough, that he himself is not a mythological writer. What really characterizes the New Journalism, at least as it is represented in this book, is first, a certain elusiveness on the part of the writer. The more he puts himself forward, hopping about inside his own story, nattily dressed, bearded, drunk, eccentric, acting up, the less we seem to know about where he stands, because he has made it his job to hide his opinions, or to hint at them only indirectly, or perhaps even to have none. This is especially clear in the pieces by Rex Reed on Ava Gardner, by Joe Eszterhas on Charlie Simpson, by Hunter Thompson on the Kentucky Derby, and by Terry Southern on the Baton Twirling Institute at Ole, Miss. The writers keep very low profiles, as the saying goes: an unwillingness to judge, or an extreme discretion in judging. And with this comes an interesting obliquity, a wonderfully skilled and powerful form of understatement. A piece of gossip or dreariness or schmaltz--Ava Gardner's drinking, the minds of rural, stay-at-home hippies, the bar at the Kentucky races, the art of baton twirling--is moved, brightly lit, to the center of the stage while in the corners, at the edges, vast, scaring implications about American life quietly gesture to us, not really wishing to intrude. This is how we understand the desperation and dignity in Ava's raw life, the large destructions implicit in the misunderstanding and madness of small American towns, the general ruin inscribed in those Louisville faces. This is how we learn that Faulkner's funeral had taken place the day before Terry Southern arrived in Oxford, Miss., that James Meredith would try to register at the University of Mississippi the summer after Southern's visit to the campus. But perhaps the most general feature of the New Journalism is its insistence on the resemblances between fact and fiction--whereas the older journalism worked hard at playing those resemblances down. With its heavy reliance on the technical resources of novels and short stories, the New Journalism is not suggesting that its stories are not true--on the contrary, we are always told that an immense amount of research has gone into getting the facts straight. Consequently, it is not suggesting, either, that we cannot distinguish any more between fact and fiction. What it is suggesting is that fiction is the only shape we can give to facts, that all shapes are fictions. And at this point we come so close to the universe of myth and fable

that the New Journalist, understandably alarmed, rushes out into the real world again, on a new assignment, to be reassured by the tangible, shapeless, incontrovertible facts of motiveless murder and random war. Michael Wood is associate professor of English at Columbia and author of a book on Stendhal.
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Reply to Tom Wolfe The Chronicle of Higher Education To the Editor: It seems that Tom Wolfe is a victim of identity theft.
Robert S. Boynton Ted Conover Richard Ben Cramer Leon Dash William Finnegan Jonathan Harr Alex Kotlowitz Jon Krakauer Jane Kramer William Langewiesche Adrian Nicole LeBlanc Michael Lewis Susan Orlean Richard Preston Ron Rosenbaum Eric Schlosser Gay Talese Calvin Trillin Lawrence Weschler Lawrence Wright

Study Li Reportag

Someone using his name published a letter ("Tom Wolfe Replies to Robert S. Boynton on 'The New New Journalism,'" The Chronicle Review, April 15) responding to an article I wrote ("Drilling Into the Bedrock of Ordinary Experience," The Chronicle Review, March 4). In short, "Tom Wolfe" wrote a parody, deftly employing some of the signature stylistic flourishes of the real Tom Wolfe: hysterical narration, outlandish hyperbole, deliberate misreading, false rhetorical questions, baseless hypotheticals, etc. In fact, "Tom Wolfe" did such a good job that he had me going for a while. Until, that is, I realized that "Wolfe" had made so many errors that the letter couldn't possibly have been crafted by the famously fastidious writer. The first clue to this deception is that in his search for anything that might discredit my argument, "Tom Wolfe" distorts the meaning of the last line of a long paragraph introducing a few of the writers I discuss in my book, The New New Journalism. He reads the line "Michael Lewis --Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (W.W. Norton, 2003) --chronicles big business" to mean that I am identifying Lewis's most recent book, rather than its author, with the subject of "big business."(Moneyball is, however, a book about the business of a game, the business of baseball -- and Lewis is a writer who has, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley to the baseball diamond, chronicled the world of American business.) Whoever this "Wolfe" is, his reading skills are abysmal. It isn't an enormous error, but poor "Tom Wolfe" prattles on about it for four paragraphs, slipping in an obvious parody of the real Wolfe's style -- "gibber-gibber ape-shrieking" -- so dated and awkward that it couldn't possibly have been written by him. It gets worse. "Tom Wolfe" continues in this vein, screeching about the way "he" uses Weber's notion of "status," when it would be clear to any reader -- even the addled, fictional graduate student "Wolfe" employs as a rhetorical device -- that it is not Tom Wolfe's definition of status I take issue with, but the way he employs it in his work. Of course, status can mean "the entire range of ways in which human beings rank one another," as he puts it, but my point is that Wolfe (and here I mean the real Tom Wolfe) tends to focus his considerable reporting skills only on the status details of those who are wealthy and white (ethnic minorities and the poor are usually relegated to caricatures). Finally, "Tom Wolfe" makes an elementary factual error when he questions my statement that Wolfe considers "ethnic and ideological subcultures" to be "terra incognita" -- an assertion I drew directly from a 1974 interview with the real Tom Wolfe ("I've completely relished this terra incognita, these subcultures, these areas of life that nobody wanted to write about," Conversations With Tom Wolfe, Page 39). For reasons known only to him, "Wolfe" then launches into a freeassociating discussion of neuroscience ("Whose hookah has the elf been smoking?"). Perhaps a CAT scan is in order. And on it goes. Anyway, as you can see from the above, there is little

danger that any student of Wolfes would mistake the letter for his work. Tom Wolfe couldnt possibly have written such an unworthy epistle. Could he? Sincerely, Robert S. Boynton New York University Wolfe on The New New Journalism The Chronicle of Higher Education read more... The New York Times Book Review Jack Shafer Boynton, the director of New York University's magazine journalism program, wants to reveal the methods of his modern masters rather than extract their views on the state of feature journalism. Fans of the Paris Review interview will recognize his questions: What does your ideal day look like? How do you get your story ideas? These predictable queries pay off. Like a building contractor interviewing carpenters for a job, Boynton assesses his subjects based on what sort of tools he finds in their toolboxes. read more... Columbia Journalism Review Julia M. Klein Dedication seems far too pallid a word for the feats of obsession chronicled in Robert S. Boyntons The New New Journalism: Conversations with Americas Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft. What it takes to belong to this elite company is the ardor to burrow inside a subject, the skill to win confidences, and the stamina to persist through inevitable setbacks as well as to transform voluminous raw material into graceful, compelling prose. These journalists all care about accuracy and fairness. But by and large, they have transcended the professions shibboleths about objectivity. While their style is sometimes cool and dispassionate, their sympathies are usually clear. In fact, each writers sensibility Michael Lewiss ironic worldview, Eric Schlossers muckraking zeal, Alex Kotlowitzs empathy for the unfortunate is part of what he (or, in rare instances, she) is selling. read more... The Writer Steve Weinberg "If there has ever been a better book of author interviews, it has escaped my attention. Boynton's enormous labors show in the insightful introductions he writes about each of the 19 authors, in the perceptiveness of his questions, in his determination to discover how the muckrakers of 100 years ago and the first wave of New Journalists 40 years ago left their mark on these 19 contemporaries, in the subtle ways he both instructs and entertains through the interviews he conducts." Haverford Alumni Magazine Winter 2006 read more... The Denver Post

Lydia Reynolds Robert Boynton has written a trade sensation with his new book "The New New Journalism." A must-read for any aspiring or experienced writer, "The New New Journalism" gives nothing less than a recipe for better storytelling, fact or fiction... Boynton offers a journalism education bar none - except perhaps only more condensed (and cheaper) than what he presents to his journalism students at New York University... To journalists, this book is crucial. To writing students, undoubtedly next year's required reading. To avid readers of this genre, a light to illuminate the mystery of their best pleasure. read more... Wired Bob Cohn In interviews with 19 new new journalists, Boynton delivers a compelling guide to the craft. Etude Rita Radostitz A great compilation of astute interviews with a group of reporters who are both masterful story tellers and brilliant writers. read more... Booklist starred review Building on the tradition of literary journalism--from nineteenthcentury writers Lincoln Steffens and Stephen Crane through Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer--the latest practitioners continue to apply keen skills of social observation and to enjoy public acclaim that promises continued support for this predominantly American craft. Boynton offers interviews with 19 writers who detail how and why they produce their work: Alex Kotlowitz tends to stumble onto his subjects, Jon Krakauer hates interviewing people in restaurants, Leon Dash refuses to become emotionally involved with his subjects, Jane Kramer appreciates the stylistic prose of literary nonfiction writers, Richard Preston is mechanically inept and prefers to take notes rather than use a tape recorder, and Ron Rosenbaum prefers the typewriter to the computer. Interviews also include Gay Talese, William Finnegan, Susan Orlean, and Lawrence Weschler. Boynton asks the writers how they get their ideas, conduct their research and interviews, and begin the writing process, as well as their takes on the future prospects for literary journalism. A fascinating book that makes the reader want to go out and get every book the writers have written as well as those mentioned as sources of inspiration. Publishers Weekly Boynton uses the clunky moniker "new new journalism" to describe a group of reporters today who write article- and book-length examinations of their subjects, often pioneering new reporting techniques (such as Adrian Nicole Leblanc's trick of leaving her tape recorder with her subjects when she went home as a way of getting them to open up without her around--a method that worked to wonderful effect in her Random Family). Yet, Boynton points out, these writers also stay true to strict journalistic standards, unlike Tom Wolfe and the New Journalists, whose creative narrative methods broke all the rules. Many of the reporters Boynton highlights are also

motivated by an activist impulse that informs but never overpowers their work. Boynton, the director of New York University's magazine journalism program, offers a nuts-and-bolts approach to understanding the way these reporters write, interviewing them on the smallest of details, such as how they organize their notes, what color pens they use and how they set ground rules with sources who aren't media savvy. Featuring lengthy discussions with star scribes such as William Langewiesche (American Ground) and Michael Lewis (Moneyball), this batch of discussions is a gold mine of technique, approach and philosophy for journalists, writers and close readers alike. The Brooklyn Rail Christian Parenti Boynton's method offers a rare and quite nice example of asking simple questions about the complex task of good reporting and writing... for any journalist, "new" or otherwise, this book serves as a necessary reminder that what we do is both an art and a craft. The Austin Chronicle Belinda Acosta After an engrossing introduction retracing Wolfe's seminal essay, as well as precursors to Wolfe and the new journalism vanguard, Boynton turns his attention to craft... Given the current fascination for reality programming, the growth of blogs, and diminishing readership for print media, Boynton offers a valuable primer for how strong journalism and the attention to craft practiced by his featured writers have created a "literature of the everyday." The New New Journalism compels readers to seek alternatives to the current infotainmentsoaked culture. read more... The Village Voice Gideon Lewis-Kraus Getting Inspired by Jacob Riis's Pieces: Who's Afraid of Tom Wolfe? read more... The Boston Globe Joshua Glenn In the introduction to ''The New Journalism'' (1973), Tom Wolfe's epochal anthology of writerly reporters like Joan Didion, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, and himself, Wolfe boasted that the literary journalism of the day was not only unprecedented but the ''main event'' of contemporary literature. ''Wolfe's claims were brilliant salesmanship,'' says reporter and NYU magazine journalism professor Robert S. Boynton. ''But literary journalism has a long history in America-and Wolfe was anxious about his place in the world of letters.'' read more... The Fifth Street Review The New New Journalism is both a splendid introduction to a uniquely American school of journalism and a detailed compendium of techniques, methods, and theories, for those whove long been practitioners of this style of nonfiction. Boynton at once surveys this

increasingly relevant and vibrant form and provides a forum for the larger philosophies at play between society and the media. read more... ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE NEW NEW JOURNALISM "Fascinating and revealing insights into how writers really write." -Tina Brown "A beautifully crafted book that works in many different ways - as instruction, profile, literary criticism, and history." -Sylvia Nasar author of A Beautiful Mind "In these enthralling interviews, a group of gifted reporters tell how they dream into life, and turn facts into art. Robert Boynton has given a name to this practice, and thus has created a valuable new field of study as well as a first rate book." -Roger Rosenblatt "Robert S. Boynton has given us two essential books on literary journalism, entwined. In one, a group of the art's working masters explicate the methods that give their writing its power. In the other, the interviews that provide that explication serve as models of interrogatory technique. While his subjects tell us how they do it, Boynton shows us how it's done." -David Hajdu Columnist for The New Republic and author of Lush Life and Positively 4th Street "An important contribution on contemporary writers for which I can think of no other similar book. The introductory overviews on each writer are lucid, probing and nuanced. Students of literary journalism will benefit immensely from it...When the literary history is written on the post-new journalism, I think The New New Journalism will be central to that effort. I have no doubt that it will become a standard in the field." -John Harstock Author of the award-winning A History of Literary Journalism: The Emergence of a Modern Narrative Form "I remember hunkering down ages ago with the Paris Review collection of interviews with authors from --gulp!--a bygone era, and it was a delight to see how or why the authorial mind works its creative magic, making it eventually onto the printed page. Now we have a worthy successor in Robert Boynton's new collection of interviews with nearly two-dozen of America's top-drawer magazine journalists. The names are familiar to those who care about writing. No, make that who really care! Reading the interviews was like eavesdropping on a literary dinner party held in honor of these accomplished non-fiction writers. Boynton, as host, certainly asked the right questions. And each "guest" performed as expected--their answers were as fullyformed, interesting, and intriguing as their writing. They report. They decide. And we are grateful as readers." -Bill Katovsky co-author of Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq

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