Digital Serials: "Punched Out" by John Branch

Here's a link to the first installment, "A Boy Learns to Brawl."

Writing Prompt: Description

In October we meet at the “O”, an on-campus restaurant of dubious cleanliness and another checkmark on her list of must-try Pittsburgh eateries, the same list I press on every out-of-towner I know. She’s from up north, just stopping in for a few years of grad school, but I’ve already coerced her into trying a sandwich piled with fries, coleslaw, and cheese, and divulged the secret ingredient of local salads.

Yes, it’s French fries. On everything. And though she seems like the healthy type—a vegetarian—with a much more refined palate than mine—that is, able to handle Indian food—she is open to giving a greasy basket of “O” fries a shot.

When we go to retrieve our food, the “O’s” high counter comes midway up to her shoulders. The main level is crowded, so in interest of hearing each of our quiet voices, we take our overflowing tray upstairs and find a seat by the window. We commiserate over classes between bites of ketchup-laden fries, and she talks about the courses she’s teaching, her boyfriend back home, and the challenges of owning a pit bull...

Response: “The Wreck of the Lady Mary”

As a person who has been moved to tears by Deadliest Catch, I totally dug the subject matter of this serial—as well as the structure, for that matter. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I like stories that “begin with the end,” and the story’s denouement is right there in the title: “The Wreck of the Lady Mary.”

We know from the beginning that this vessel is going to end up on the bottom of the ocean. It’s up to the writer to show us how it happened—and why.

And here’s my favorite feature of nonfiction at work: A writer taking a situation and drawing out its intricacies, making its full complexity apparent to the reader. In this case, Nutt presents the wreck of the Lady Mary and the loss of her crew as an accumulation of many factors. Some are human errors, while others are just matters of fate:

The EPIRB registration number being poorly transcribed, and then entered incorrectly into the system. The delay of the low-orbiting satellite. The ship’s back hatch being open. The UMIB operator only sending the alert out on one frequency instead of two.

For me, this “accumulation” of circumstances makes the situation all the more real and heart-wrenching to read about. (I literally groaned aloud when I read this about the UMIB operator’s mistake: “The radio message disappears some 40 miles short of the two dozen fishing boats working near the stricken Lady Mary.”) It makes the reader consider the “what-ifs” of the situation... What if the EPIRB had been functioning correctly? What if that low-orbiting satellite had been just overhead when it went off? What if—if the Cap Beatrice was indeed the culprit—the Lady Mary had been floating a few hundred feet further away, within the larger ship's line of sight?

An EPIRB. (Source.)

Choice of Detail

Something I hear of more frequently in fiction than nonfiction is the concept of “info-dumping”, or the excessive piling on of unnecessary information. In “The Wreck of the Lady Mary” there were a number of places where I was left wondering about the relevance of what I had just read.

Consider the part in Chapter 2 where the rescuer grabs a chocolate protein shake before he left. That totally tore me out of the story for some reason. I mean, what’s the relevance of the protein shake? Unless something happens like… I don’t know… he gets dropped into the ocean and the only thing keeping his muscles from seizing up is the fact that he DRANK THAT PROTEIN SHAKE, does that detail matter?

In the morgue, we are told: “The doorknob-less entry is key-card only.”

After the rescue: “When someone dies during transport, or a body is recovered at sea, the helicopter must be specially cleansed.”

At these moments, it felt like these details were included because they caught Nutt’s attention, not because they especially added to the scene or pushed the narrative forward. On the other hand, I didn’t mind passages like these:

“The fastest way up into the helicopter is the harness, or lifting strop, since it’s secured under the arms and legs, but when someone has been in cold water for any length of time, it’s also more dangerous. […] Saved from hypothermia, the victim could easily go into cardiac arrest before reaching the helicopter door.”

And later: “Cadaveric spasm—the rigidity of the arms and legs—is a kind of flash-freezing that occurs almost instantaneously when a victim drowns this way. The more Bobo battled to breathe, the less likely he was to live.”

Immediate relevance is definitely the key here!


Graphics

I loved the inclusion of photos, videos, and other "functional" visuals in this piece. The image that offered a historical perspective of New Jersey shipwrecks in Chapter 3 did great work for the piece, as did “The Lady Mary’s Tragic End”, with its decription of the ship’s parts and the sailors' locations. Same goes for "A Detailed Look at Each Possible Cause" and the photocopy of the EPIRB registration form—it was just so great to actually see the "C" that was mistaken for a "0". I thought this essay was a great example of how media can extend and enhance a piece of writing.

By the end, though, I wonder what this article might have looked like outside of this rigid format . . . Perhaps on a site where more customization was allowed, and the images could have flowed more naturally with the text. Still, I give them props for the great visual aids.

Images like this one -- not a functional "visual aid", exactly -- worked well for the mood of the piece.

Random Notes

- Would it be right to call the plank a "Chekhov's gun" in this piece? Nutt introduces this seemingly innocuous object at the beginning, and later, it plays a big role in saving Arias' life.

- Nutt uses the helicopter's diminishing gas supply as a way to inject tension into the piece and push the narrative along. Not sure how effective this was, considering the structure—we kind of know they're going to make it back to shore, after all.

- While I really liked the "Coping" section of the fifth installment, I just didn't connect with the sailors' families very well otherwise. I don't think we spend quite enough time with them for me to really attach to their stories. I did find this line very powerful, though: “Most fishermen understand and accept [the loss of fellow sailors], but not their families, who for centuries have waited on shores for men who never came home.”

- I wish there had been a more persistent presence of the Cap Beatrice, which sort of disappears in the middle sections of the story. Then again, I suppose the ship wasn't sending out any location signals for a while there... But I still wish there had been some mention of it, even if it was to say that "the Cap Beatrice had not sent out a signal for [however many] hours by this point" or "at this moment, the Cap Beatrice reported its location [wherever]." Guess I kind of wanted a sense of this big ship lurking around in the background.

- Occasionally there were odd "blocks" of dates/measurements in this story that made me reread passages. Example: “On April 14, 2009, in heavy rain and fog, the 85-foot scalloper Dictator was hit by the 965-foot container Florida, 21 days after the Lady Mary went down and in the same fishing ground. On July 30 of this year the 72-foot Atlantic Queen, fishing 11 miles off Long Island, was hit by the 625-foot cargo ship Baldor, which sheered off 15 feet of the Atlantic Queen’s bow.”

- Interesting that the third and fourth installments of this piece were published on the same day. I wonder why they didn't continue with a day-to-day posting schedule... Installment length, perhaps?

Response: “Encounters with the Archdruid”

John McPhee

To put it too plainly: I have mixed feelings about this book.

First, the good. It goes without saying that McPhee is a master of describing nature in a precise, no-hassle sort of way. He doesn’t need to douse his prose in flowery metaphors for it to be memorable, and I admire that. By the end of the book, I was definitely agreeing with the sentiment from our last class: I want to go on a hike with this guy, and I don’t even like hiking!

I also appreciated how McPhee managed his presence in Encounters with the Archdruid and how he characterized certain figures through their signature activities. There was Brower eating his every meal out of a Sierra Club cup—even a steak!—and Dominy’s cigar-smoking and Jim Beam-drinking. (My favorite was Park and his pick-swinging, for sure.) He really chose unique, compelling characters to follow and pit against one another.

Other positives: The way he clustered unattributed quotes (like the snippets of dialogue about Brower from the Sierra Club crowd) was interesting. I loved the ironic moment with the Forest Service guy who grouped up Brower, Park, and the rest as “wilderness-lovers.” On the whole, I feel like this book further complicated my views of conservation and development (in a good way).

But Encounters with the Archdruid did drive me crazy sometimes. On page 61, when this exchange happened . . .

Brower: “Logging follows mining.”
Park: “You can control that.”
Brower: “That’s what I’m hoping.”
Park: “Your idea of control is to keep it out.”

. . . I literally leaned back and started thumping my head off the wall behind my chair. The bickering was often painfully repetitive, and even when the characters happened to agree about something, I knew that they’d be back to arguing in a few paragraphs. But, okay—maybe it’s just me. I have a low tolerance for listening to people squabble, especially when they are so deeply entrenched in their respective camps that they can barely give an inch to one another. The lack of progression irritated me.

The constant back-and-forth also made me pretty impatient with the narrative, unfortunately. More than once I picked up my phone and searched the names of the potential development sites, just to hurry up and learn how things turned out. (FYI: Fraser was eventually pressured into selling Cumberland Island to the National Park Foundation. As for the Hualapai Dam, it’s still stalled in the proposal stages.)

I guess it’s a credit to McPhee that I cared enough, as a reader, to look up those places and check their status. And I appreciated that McPhee addressed the “I’m-not-quite-sure” majority later in the book, because that’s definitely where I’m situated. The ending of part one kind of summed up my frustrations:

Brower: “I just feel sorry for all you people who don’t know what these mountains are good for.”
McPhee: “What are they good for?”
Brower: “Berries.”
Park: “Copper.”

Part of me thought, “Ha, that’s a clever ending.” Another part thought, “75 pages later and you still completely disagree? I never would have guessed!”

Lava Falls

Themes, Messages, etc.

The most evident theme in this book was the pitting of beauty against utility. By wholeheartedly pursuing only one, you forfeit the other. There was a very interesting moment where Brower’s preoccupation with beauty was complicated by the fact that, in order to preserve it, not everyone could have access to it—is “ninety-nine-point-nine percent” enough?

In the end, though, what was the point of this book? There’s the exploration of very distinct, even divergent points of view and the dissonance they produce. There’s evidence in favor of conservation. There’s evidence in favor of (careful, environmentally-friendly) development. There's the idea of a man—in this case, multiple men—who live and breathe their subjects of interest. For me, there was no singular “message” to be found.

Also, I wondered which part of the narrative was really playing the supportive role. Were the descriptions of the hike and raft ride needed to hold up the debates? (Imagine if McPhee had invited them to sit down and chat over coffee, instead.) On the other hand, without the tension of those arguments, would the descriptions of the hike and raft ride stood on their own?

Process

Encounters with the Archdruid relies heavily on long, complicated quotations and highly detailed descriptions of the environment. McPhee mentions note-taking once, when he’s putting his papers away on the raft to keep them from getting soaked, so I suppose he did it all by hand. That’s just remarkable to me. I wouldn’t have the skill (or coordination) to keep solid notes while hiking along like that . . . Was anyone else impressed?

Response: “Mr. Lytle” and Writing the Profile

Andrew Lytle

“To the end of her long life this woman wore a velvet ribbon at her neck, fastened with a golden pin. That’s how close Lytle was to the Civil War. Close enough to reach up as a child, passing into sleep, and fondle the clasp of that pin.”

That was my favorite passage from John Jeremiah Sullivan’s “Mister Lytle: An Essay.” It evokes a vivid image of literally reaching across time, a salient subject in a tale of an older artist and his protégé. Throughout, Sullivan does an excellent job of establishing Lytle as a relic, with his “extinct” accent and “extraterrestrial” body. (Describing the artist’s writing as “brilliantly senile” was another particularly strong turn of phrase, I think.) Something about this essay really gripped me; the theme of mortality, perhaps, but also the bits of writing wisdom sprinkled throughout.

Here are a few of the lines that most intrigued me, and my accompanying thoughts:

- “He told me I was a writer but that I had no idea what I was doing. ‘This is where the older artist comes in.’” (and later) “I tried to apply his criticisms, but they were sophisticated to a degree my efforts couldn’t repay. He was trying to show me how to solve problems I hadn’t learned existed.”

For me, this reinforces the idea of writing as a craft—something that is studied and honed over a lifetime. At the same time, there is an interesting conflict between these two passages. Though Lytle offers himself up as the knowledgeable “older artist,” he consequently confuses Sullivan by totally going over his head with his suggestions.

So, what aspects of writing are truly teachable, and which ones must be individually “discovered” as one’s craft develops? Seeing as I’m not a TA, I haven’t really had to ponder this subject. Instinctively, I’d say that “hard” rules like grammar and spelling are teachable, while personal style and voice are something an individual develops over time. (And of course, one’s style or voice might involve breaking the rules of grammar and spelling. I’m inclined to think you should know the rules before you break them, though.)

- “What he could still do, in his weakness, I couldn’t do.”

This possibly just resonated with me because I have so many aging relatives, but I thought that this line had a beautiful, poignant ring to it. I felt the same way about this selection: “I used to walk by his wedding picture, which hung next to the cupboard—the high forehead, the square jaw, the jug ears—and think, as I passed it, ‘If you wanted to contend with him, you’d have to contend with that man.’ Otherwise it was cheating.”

These passages really highlighted the differences between these two men—one at the beginning of his life and career, the other at the end of his own.

- “He wrote about the Muse, how she tests us when we’re young.”

OK, so this line really fascinated me . . . Can anyone guess what Lytle might have meant by this? I’ve heard other writers talk about their muses, but I can’t say that I have some particular figure in mind that inspires me to write. How are young artists “tested”?

-  “His toenails were of horn.” (and) “He knew how to adjust his formality by tenths of a degree, to let you know where you stood.”

Just awesome. Sullivan has a knack for choosing pitch-perfect descriptions.

The biggest disappointment for me in this piece was that, at the end, I felt that knowing so little of the Agrarian movement really cheated me out of Lytle’s intricacies. It was like having a certain pigment absent from a portrait; I got a rich-enough sense of who Lytle was, but there was still something important missing. Maybe that’s just a Critical Reader Failure on my part, as I wouldn’t say that it was Sullivan’s job to explain the Agrarian movement to me—particularly when you consider the venue for this piece. It's a subject that I'll definitely have to read up on in the future.

***

As a side note . . . Looking at this trio of profiles, I found that they also offered a glimpse into the interviewer’s writing life. The questions the writers ask and the subjects they focus upon often offer insight into their own processes, even as they are profiling others.

Schenkar is preoccupied with voice, for example, while Roiphe discusses her habit of not writing down location details when she’s interviewing.

Hope that makes sense. I was just intrigued by the way that the interviewers' characters colored these profiles.

Response: “Shipping Out” (+ comments on the Internet and writing)

Where Wallace did Supposedly Fun Things: The MV Zenith.

I first read "Shipping Out" as an undergrad, and turned to it again in the last year or so when I was writing about a county fair. Here, I've plucked out a few different features that I notice everytime I re-read this piece.


Opening Sequence

The first section of this piece functions as a sort of brochure, offering the reader a glimpse of what they’re about to encounter in the story. DFW creates rhythm through repetition, beginning most of the sentences with “I have” before selecting a verb. About half the time it’s a sensory one like “seen” or “heard,” suggesting more passive experiences, but DFW also hints at the active side of the cruise—he’s jumped at the sound of the ship’s horn, eaten all types of food, and acquired a crush on his steward.

There are the beautiful details that might have been promised by the cruise line itself: “sucrose beaches,” “sunsets that [look] computer-enhanced,” boats as “floating wedding cakes.”

But DFW balances this description with less savory details: “suntan lotion spread over 2,100 pounds of hot flesh,” “[smelling] all 145 cats inside the Ernest Hemingway residence,” and a “flatulence-of-the-gods-like sound.” (Or my personal favorite: when he saw “a woman in silver lame projectile-vomit inside a glass elevator.” What an image.)

This is a pattern that continues throughout “Shipping Out,” with the pleasant, enjoyable aspects of the cruise meeting up against the creepy, strange, and discomforting. It's also an introduction to one of DFW's signature moves: piling image upon image and detail upon detail with nearly overwhelming effects.

Themes: Birth & Death

Early in the essay—in a section titled “Pampered to Death,” no less—DFW cites a recent suicide on a Megaship and his longtime association of the ocean with death. He characterizes the open sea as an “engine of decay” and a “primordial stew of death and decay,” populated by man-eating sharks. The image of the shark fin appears frequently in the story, a hint of darkness outside of the ship. (And in the wake of his suicide, DFW’s feelings of despair and “wanting to die” are pretty painful to read.)

On the other hand, the ship is described with a lot of birth-related vocabulary. You have the “uterine” temperatures, the “near-parental” attitude of the cruise program, and the “mother’s pulse” of the ship’s engines.

This theme not only plays up the pleasant vs. creepy dichotomy of the cruise, but also places the cruise-goers in an interesting position between life and death. (DFW alludes to this when he mentions that cruises are popular with older people or those who already feel near to death, like the pair who had spent time caring for a dying relative.) And in the end, to make it off the ship is to have "survived." It all hints to a larger psychological phenomenon beyond cruise-going.


Voice & Authorial Presence

Something I've always admired about this piece is how well it expresses DFW's authority as a writer. How many others could get away with chronicling the efficiency of their cabin's toilet and shower? Or an hour-by-hour account of what one is doing on the ship? This goes on for about 20k words, nearly 3k words of footnotes included.

For me, the success of "Shipping Out" lies in DFW's voice and visibility as an intelligent, eccentric narrator—and, as someone with a unique and necessarily cynical view on the situation. (Consider the difference between his cruise narrative and that of Frank Conroy.) His voice is consistent and dotted with Wallace-isms like "methamphetaminic" and "exfoliatingly," not to mention a healthy dose of dry wit:

[Mona's] real birthday, she informs me on Monday, is July 29, and when I quietly observe that July 29 is also the birthday of Benito Mussolini, Mona's grandmother shoots me kind of a death-look, although Mona herself is excited at the coincidence, apparently confusing the names Mussolini and Maserati.

***

Comments on the “Internet is a Disaster for Writers” Idea

In truth, I haven’t really paid much attention to this debate—mostly because I’m so deeply immersed in the pro-digital, pro-Internet camp. When I write, I like to have the TV on and music playing; for me, silence is distracting. Guess I'm part of that multitasking, digital-overload generation.

Yet, I have a hard time seeing that as a really bad thing for writers. After all, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs allow us to network with others in our field and share connections. Sites like AgentQuery and forums like AbsoluteWrite make it possible for writers to look up agent preferences, avoid publishing scams, etc. In terms of research alone, think of all the time that online databases and search engine have saved writers, and how those resources have offered inspiration. So when someone says that the Internet is oh-so-distracting and wastes our valuable time, I can’t help but feel totally unconvinced. Everyone—not only writers—has to deal with these distractions and manage their time. Why do we feel particularly wronged by it?

Response: "The Devil in the White City"

In case you haven’t heard, there are murmurs that Leonardo DiCaprio will be starring as H.H. Holmes in a film adaptation of The Devil in the White City. IMDb has the movie listed as “in pre-production” and estimates that it’ll be out in 2013. So, a fictional adaptation of a nonfiction book that uses fiction-inspired techniques.

And Leo, with a mustache that—if it’s as magnificent as Holmes’—will probably get its own billing in the credits. Awesome.

Character development

Despite the vast number of characters in The Devil in the White City, I rarely had trouble remembering who was who. Larson is talented at painting portraits of his cast with just the right amount of detail: more for primary characters like Holmes and Burnham, less for those like Pitezel. I imagine that it was tempting to follow some of those people’s stories further, but to do so would have been “going down the rabbit hole,” as we say in class. I admire Larson’s restraint in choosing the sharpest, most relevant information in building his characters.

One section in particular caught my attention. On page 79, Larson describes the meeting of “the eastern architects” with Burnham. He uses this great, sweeping line to quickly establish the groups’ shared experience:

All were wealthy and at the peaks of their careers, but all also bore the scars of nineteenth-century life, their pasts full of wrecked rail cars, fevers, and the premature deaths of loved ones.

He goes on with this shared description to say:

They wore dark suits and crisp white collars. All had mustaches, some dark some gray.

Then the narrative splits off to look more closely at two particularly important characters:

Post was huge, the largest man in the room. Hunt was fierce, a frown in a suit, with a client list that included most of America’s richest families. Every other mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, and along Fifth Avenue in New York seemed to have been designed by him…

Larson then swings back into describing the shared attributes of the group—namely, their similar backgrounds in education. This becomes a roundabout way of characterizing Burnham, who appears as an outsider:

For Burnham, with his failed attempts at getting into Harvard and Yale and his lack of formal architectural training, sitting down to dinner with these men was like being a stranger at someone else’s Thanksgiving.

All of this adds up to a quick, useful introduction to this mass of characters. And an artful one, no less—I just love that “frown in a suit” line.

That said, I did feel like there was one secondary character who got too much attention: the assassin Prendergast. I understand his function as a character, but every time the narrative jumped to him, I was pulled right out of the story.  I suppose I’d prefer to see him presented as a more mysterious figure . . . At the moment, he’s only a distraction from the main story—and the main murderer—for me.

Use of primary sources

Larson used an interesting assortment of primary sources to offer a snapshot of the White City's time and culture, ranging from:

- An inventory of the ailments treated by the fair’s hospital, from constipation to headaches to . . . “extreme flatulence.”  (See page 284.)

- A few different event menus that are kind of incomprehensible if your aren’t into French cuisine, but offer some cultural cues: time set aside for cigarettes and cigars, etc. (See pages 98 and 219).

- A reprint of how Burnham addressed his letter to Millet. (See page 389.):

Hon. F.D. Millet

To arrive on

Steamship Titanic

New York

Larson lets these sorts of sources stand on their own as part of the White City's world. They are more effective this way; for instance, wouldn't it have been far less powerful if Larson had simply said, "Millet was due to arrive on the Titanic"? I think there are some good lessons to take from The Devil in the White City in this regard.

Visual elements

When I saw the gorgeous cover of this book—with its old-timey font, sepia coloring, and lovely photo of The White City—I was excited to see how Larson worked images into his narrative. However, aside from the maps and architectural renderings at the beginning of the book, I only counted six other pictures in The Devil in the White City. None of them really interacted with the text in any way; rather, they only appeared as ornamentation for the title pages of each part. Part 1 offers a picture of Chicago circa 1889, Part 2 features the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building after a storm, etc.

I wonder if this was a choice by Larson or a choice by his publisher. Given the focus on architecture in this book, shouldn’t we have at least seen a picture of Holmes’ “Castle?” Or better yet, the blue prints?

(Source. Lots of pictures and videos here.)

How about pictures of Holmes’ victims, especially the children whom he murders at the end? (When I watched a documentary on Holmes, they showed drawings from 19th century magazines that illustrated how he went about killing the kids. Talk about an interesting comment on the time period.) Or more pictures of the White City and its architects over time? Maybe it's just my love of pre-1930s photography, but I feel that the absence of pictures—ones that contribute to the narrative, not just act as decoration—is a significant flaw in this book.

Response: "Radioactive"

(Source.)

It took me three nights to realize that the cover and spine of Lauren Redniss’ Radioactive glow in the dark. For the first two nights, I lacked the ambition to climb out of bed and figure out what the heck was lighting up my desk. (I figured that the lights from my router were reflecting on something.) Finally, on night three, I got up to investigate.

And the book was glowing. And I was really impressed.

Radioactive is the sort of book I would love to write, mostly because it takes a concept and just owns it. Radium glows? Make the book glow. Radium-205 is the most stable isotope? Make the book 205 pages. (Note: That's speculation on my part. But it would be cool if that was her intent.) Need an interesting font? So make one, and base it on the font of manuscripts you used for your research. Much of the enjoyment that I got out of Radioactive came from these Easter egg-like surprises. The text and design interact in a number of interesting ways:

- At the beginning of the book, Pierre’s story occupies the left-hand pages, while Marie’s occupies the right. Then, when they meet on p. 26, this pattern starts to dissolve; their quotes are placed on the same pages, and they begin appearing in color illustrations together. I thought this was a really clever visual gesture to how their early lives ran parallel to one another before finally converging in a romantic relationship.

- Redniss also makes great use of empty space and font size/color to draw attention to certain phrases. On the otherwise black-and-white p. 26, the word “colorific” jumps out in a rainbow. And on p. 27, we have a quote from Marie about the beginning of her friendship with Pierre: “We began a conversation which soon became friendly.” This phrase appears in red and is larger than the preceding text. More importantly, though, it is set apart—a line in the background illustration separates it out, and the huge empty space below the quote draws the eye right in.

- The placement of the text creates certain effects, as well. Check out the way that the text moves between Marie’s arms on p. 19, slowing down the reader’s pace. I thought that the sequence on pp. 125-127 was also really cool, as Redniss asks: “Who wouldn’t rejoice in the union of Paul and Marie—a coupling of giants?” Two pages later, we get this isolated phrase: “His wife.” (Being the very serious literary critic that I am, I’d call that an “OMG” moment.)

That’s not to say that the text placement was perfect, though. For example, see p. 53, where white text over a light background makes for tricky reading. It goes to show how mindful a writer/designer has to be of every little detail for a book like this.

- Finally, text shape and spacing. Note the wavy shape of the text on p. 64, when Redniss is telling the dancer’s story, and how the lines radiate like light from the figures' bodies on p. 123. I also appreciated the way that the paragraph spacing increased and decreased, either slowing down or speeding up the reading experience. Line breaks also contributed to these effects.

As for the drawings themselves... I’m really torn about them. Though their style is not to my taste, I thought the majority of them were effective—this is “a tale of love and fallout,” after all, so the twisted, semi-grotesque figures are fitting. I loved the use of negatives to create a glowing effect (the couple on page 40-41 and the carrying away of Pierre’s body on pp. 100-101 were particularly nice). On the other hand, some of the art just distracted me from the story. Who is the man on p. 26, and why does he have three eyes, two noses, and two mouths? Why do people randomly switch from clothed to naked from page to page? And what am I looking at on pp. 98-99, given that the coachman wouldn’t be riding the horse?

Frankly, I found myself really wanting fewer drawings and more photographs in Radioactive, such as those on pp. 110-111 and pp. 156-157. They worked nicely to ground this fantastical book in reality. I mean, we didn’t even get a photo of Pierre!

Pierre Curie, seen here channeling the Dos Equis guy. (Source.)

Now, since I’ve spent so much time talking design, I’ll say a word about the story itself:

I connected best with Radioactive when it focused on Marie and Pierre. (The latter of whom got the short end of the storytelling stick here, I think. Marie seems more well-developed as a character, and not just because she lives longer.) Some of the non-chronological cutaways from their tale, like the story of Irving S. Lowen, felt very abrupt and broke the mood of the book for me. It’s not that I didn’t want the extra context of the Curies' radioactive legacy. The structure just didn’t feel quite right. Maybe if the book had opened with a hint toward the future of radium and then jumped back to the Curies, the back-and-forth structure would have felt more established and natural.

Something to consider: Would this story (in its current form) have worked as plain text?... I think not!


-----

ETA: In advance of reading The Devil in the White City, I just noticed that there is a H.H. Holmes documentary up on Netflix. It's called "H.H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer." I'm not sure if it's any good -- I'm waiting to watch it until after I finish the book -- but it might be worth checking out.

Response: "About That Day"

According to the Pew Research Center, 97% of Americans remember where they were on 9/11. It’s something that comes up in every conversation I’ve had “about that day”: Where were you when you found out? (My answer: Homeroom, ninth grade.) In terms of both content and style, Rhett Miller’s essay on experiencing 9/11 as a New Yorker offers lots of interesting points for discussion.

Immediacy: Tense Changes and Fragments

A major feature of this story is its sense of immediacy. In part, Miller achieves this effect by switching into the present tense, which could have felt gimmicky but worked for me in this particular story. In addition to the introduction, we have this opening paragraph in the past tense:

“Went to bed at three last night after writing a song, 'Lovebird,' and making love with Erica. About 9 a.m., heard two loud explosions. [ . . . ] It’s not unusual to hear construction in the morning, and I think I muttered a sleepy complaint about the loud noise.”

After a few lines of dialogue, we move into present tense, launching us into a play-by-play of the day’s events:

“Terrace is locked. A girl getting on the elevator says we can go stand in the stairwell. There’s an opening with a view. A half-dozen people already there.”

Aside from one brief switch back (“Six weeks ago, E’s parents came to the city . . .”), the story stays in the present tense until the last paragraph. Here, it returns to past tense, with a hint of present at the very end:

“I didn’t write a word about the engagement ring in the journal. I was afraid Erica would see it. [. . .] We got married, had two kids, and now live in a quiet spot in the Hudson Valley. We don’t discuss the events of that day much anymore.”

Those last two sentences are interesting to me because of their movement through time. They describe what happened (“We got married, had two kids . . .”), what is happening presently (“. . . and now live in a quiet spot . . .”), and suggest a trend continuing into the future (not discussing 9/11 anymore).

To achieve a sense of immediacy in this piece, Miller also uses fragments and short, choppy sentences. It makes the story feel more off-the-cuff, like a pure stream of thought. It’s useful to consider the effects that different constructions could have:

Miller’s construction: “We run. In our stupid Birks. Down to where the street dead-ends. South.”

Another option: “We run south in our stupid Birks, down to where the street dead-ends.”

Another option: “In our stupid Birks, we run south, down to where the street dead-ends.”

Repeated Themes

- Loss. Miller doesn’t mention knowing anyone who died in the attacks, so the sense of human loss in more abstract in this story than in other 9/11 pieces I’ve read. (It’s mostly represented by the recurring image of the falling man. It’s an image of hopelessness, but also an image of a person taking control of their fate.) This piece was more about Miller’s loss of “home”—not just material possessions like his guitar and notebooks, but the sense of security and personal control that “home” suggests.

- Confusion/Disorientation. The characters in this story are at a total loss as to how to handle the situation. They don’t know if to stay or leave, they fail to wear good running shoes, they’re on “autopilot.” At one point, Miller says simply: “We don’t know where to go.” Later, he reflects on how E’s mother said that younger generations wouldn’t be able “to deal with a catastrophe;” 9/11 entailed, as it’s often been said, a loss of innocence. In a particularly telling moment, the characters seek comfort in a place that feels familiar—a restaurant called Buffa’s, where they eat their typical eggs and bacon.

- The bodily experience of 9/11. This is a really “physical” story, as opposed to a reflective one. My favorite line of the bunch was: “Breathing feels like chewing and swallowing.”

Digital Components

The Atlantic augmented this story with video and links to Miller’s related writings. The latter offers images of his notebook—but only of the pages where he had written lyrics. I wish they had included a snapshot of his actual journal writings. For one thing, I’m curious about how much of this piece is straight transcription (from his diary) and how much has been added to assist in the flow of the story.

A few parts feel reflective, as if they were added in once Miller had more time to process how he was feeling. (Like when he senses that he’s beginning to distance himself, an instinct of self-defense that he acquired in childhood.) But in the end, this essay's power seems to lie in its rawness.

Response: "Death of a Pig"

Among our classic readings this week, E.B. White’s “Death of a Pig” was the piece that resonated most deeply with me. I know this is partly due to my rural . . . er, country . . . upbringing. The subject matter is familiar, and with very few modifications—the removal of the telephone, for instance—“Death of a Pig” could have been written in 1848 rather than 1948. (And with an update of the tech, this experience would fit into a contemporary issue of Lancaster Farmer.) But for a number of reasons, I also think that this story could have timeless appeal for readers who haven’t lived the “antique pattern,” kept vigil in a barn, or dug a grave.

Sympathetic Characters

The liveliest characters in “Death of a Pig” are non-human—but this is not to say that they aren’t humanized. Though the pig is never named, White presents him as something like a sickly child: it is worrisome when he fails to show up for dinner, he reacts hatefully to taking nasty-tasting medicine, and White checks him for a fever with his hand (touching his ears, rather than his forehead). White makes eating noises to encourage the pig to eat, calls him a “patient,” and checks on him regularly through the night. He is now connected to this creature, as soul to body, by “the silver cord.”

These details not only make us sympathetic to the pig, but also act to better define White’s own character. Fred the dachshund also contributes here; he is personified as a “happy quack” and acts as comic relief, his joyful, troublemaking nature rubbing up against the narrator’s despair. (White writes about him with such affection and exasperation, like: “I love you . . . but you’re sort of awful.”)

For me, the stories that stay with me are those that make me feel something for the characters—and in this case, I definitely sympathized with White and his four-legged protagonists.

Universal Themes

In our classes, we often talk about the big themes that make our stories relatable to our readers. Largely, “Death of a Pig” is concerned with the relationship between humans and animals and how certain circumstances, such as illness, affect that connection.

This story also explores the human fear of sickness, as White deals with the fact that he might have gotten erysipelas from the pig. (Brilliantly, he describes his worry about the illness as “fastening its hooks in [his] head.”) Likewise, White struggles with feelings of uselessness as the pig’s health continues to decline. The reader is prepped from the beginning for a tale of death and loss, and “Death of a Pig” delivers.

The most resonant theme in this story, however, is the painful disruption of expectations.

While White is deeply affected by the pig’s illness, he was raising the pig for food. The pig was destined to die—just not in this way. It’s the deviation from the “script” that disturbs White, and I think that this feeling is universally familiar in some form or another—it’s the pain of the sudden twist, or an “awakening,” as White terms it. Essentially, the pig’s unexpected death makes White question his personal autonomy and power over his own life. Regardless of the subject matter, it's a greater theme like this that makes a story accessible to readers across time and circumstance.

Survival in the Digital Age?

The Atlantic lists this story under the simple heading of “Animals” and has not updated it with any of the features we’ve examined in more recent stories: no hyperlinks, embedded videos, etc. The sparseness suits this story, though. (And in fact—aside from some illustrations—all of the classic stories we read were left in their original, text-only forms. It just seemed right for them to be that way, and it might be interesting to talk about why this is so.)

With or without contemporary updates, digital forms offer stories like these an extended afterlife  that they wouldn't have enjoyed otherwise. This includes the greater possibility of readers "stumbling" across the work—something that would happen far less frequently if the story was confined to print—and sharing it with many others. Though I'm still partial to print, I have to appreciate digital forms for allowing access to stories like these. 

*** I really wanted to link a picture of White and Fred here—but I couldn’t find one. I did find a Fred-related quote from White, though: “I've never had a dog who understood so much of what I said or held it in such deep contempt.” Ha!

Response: "What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince?"

While I’d heard about Phoebe Prince’s suicide on TV, I hadn’t followed the story (in written form) online or in newspapers/magazines. So, I come to Emily Bazelon’s “What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince?” with little knowledge of the body of work on this subject. (Or, for that matter, any idea of what angles might be played out by now.)

Ultimately, I feel like Bazelon’s story offered a broad-but-shallow look at the key issues in Phoebe’s case. A lot of fascinating threads were brought up and left unexplored. The ones that really interested me included:

- Sean, the “strong kid who had looked out for weaker ones.” When Bazelon identified him that way early in the story, I thought for sure that he’d be profiled closely, but that didn’t happen. (Guess she didn’t have the interview access . . . ) I didn’t get a sense of Sean—or few others from South Hadley High—as one who tried to protect Phoebe. And then there’s that interesting moment where a boy shows Phoebe what others are saying about her on Facebook, but instead of reprimanding them himself, he allows her to type a response in his name. It all plays into that issue of bystanders rarely standing up to bullies or reporting them.

- Culture clashes: How the kids considered themselves “true Irish,” while Phoebe was a “poser.” Clearly they thought of themselves as Irish, and yet they always called Phoebe the “Irish” slut, “Irish” bitch, etc. So, what’s the disconnect between being native Irish and American Irish? There was also that passing remark about how Phoebe was “excited that in [the U.S.] you could talk and express yourself in class.” The immigrant experience of being bullied by American peers could have served as an interesting lens for this story.

- The fact that several of the kids involved had either lost or were separated from their fathers. I don’t know if there’s really a story there, but Bazelon made a point to mention this fact when she introduced the characters, so it really stuck with me.

Response: "Lifted"

I have this habit when it comes to books: By the time I get halfway through one, I’ve usually flipped forward to see how the story ends. (Yes, I’m one of those people.) It’s the same deal with movies. I’ll get part way through, pull up Wikipedia on my phone, and read what’s going to happen next. I can't remember the last time I actually made it through a film without doing this.

It’s not that I stop reading/watching right then and there. Rather, there’s something about knowing the ending—or at least, some future plot details—that injects more tension into the story for me. I know where the characters end up… Now, what events and decisions get them there?

As I read “Lifted,” I wondered how the story might be different if it opened with a later scene. To be precise, I’m thinking of Chapter 5, where we finally get a look at the building that the thieves are going to break into. What would the story feel like if that scene was used as a hook?

First, we learn that this building is understaffed and not designed for its present use—in fact, it’s downright vulnerable. By the time the walls begin to shake, we’re pretty sure this is not going to end well. Our suspicions are confirmed as the robbers break in, and we get those interesting clues about their process—for example, their ladder has been measured to fit the building. The opening scene could end with them preparing to overcome the vault.

We don’t know how much money they’re going to get away with—if any. We don’t know if the police are standing on the other side of the door. But we do know that they made it this far, and that they seem to have insider knowledge of the building, and that they are very, very well-prepared.

So, the big question becomes: How did they do it?

Attention Twitter Newbies (Myself Included)

One of my favorite bloggers, CNET writer and former agent Nathan Bransford, has a couple of useful posts on using Twitter:

- How To Use Twitter

- How to Use Twitter @ Reply

Two Awesome Nonfiction Writers

The first CNF writer whose work I really connected with: Jo Ann Beard (see: "The Fourth State of Matter" or The Boys of My Youth)

Predates our present concept of contemporary nonfiction and is better known for his fiction: Jack London (see: People of the Abyss)

Response: "Three Cups of Deceit"

Given that I write just as much fiction as nonfiction, Krakauer’s Three Cups of Deceit made for interesting reading. I’m going to take a cue from Nikki here and split my response up under headings.

Deceit by the numbers

In exploring the scope of Greg Mortenson’s deception, Krakauer frequently references hard figures. He gestures to the diversity of those who donated to the CAI—from President Obama ($100,000), to school kids ($2.5 million, donated in pennies), to himself ($75,000). He cites the lengthy presence of Three Cups of Tea on the NYT bestseller list—four years and two months, as of March 2011—as well as the number of books in print (~5 million). Krakauer’s study of the CAI’s finances adds at least a dozen more figures to his analysis.

On the other hand, he also looks to less quantifiable measures of Mortenson’s deceit, like the experiences of the disillusioned CAI employees and Pakistani villagers. For me, there was a lesson in how Krakauer wove these elements together into one cohesive argument.

The men (and women?) behind the myth

In my first post, I mentioned the breadth of Krakauer’s research. Among those sources: photographs, financial reports, personal letters, articles from popular magazines and academic journals, excerpts from Mortenson’s works, and interviews with individuals like Pakistani scholars and the president of a charity watchdog group.

But a voice that I felt was noticeably absent? That of Mortenson’s co-author and ghostwriters.

Mortenson’s co-author for Three Cups of Tea, David Oliver Relin, appears in the “Dramatis Personae” list but is only mentioned twice in the Krakauer piece. Same goes for Stones into Schools ghostwriter Kevin Fedarko, though he did get an interesting footnote (#8) that confirmed his rather “blindfolded” role: He had to assume Mortenson’s story was true, and he wasn’t responsible for any fact-checking.

I found myself really wanting to know more about these writers, given how important they were to forming Mortenson’s “creation myth,” as Krakauer calls it. Were they all as unwitting as Fedarko? If not, did they have any misgivings about presenting fiction under the guise of fact?

Don’t worry. Enjoy it.

Being into tech of all sorts, I was pretty excited to find out that we’d be focusing on social media in this class. Though I follow many writers and agents on all different platforms—from Blogger to WordPress, and from Tumblr to Twitter—I personally only use Facebook. I’d really like to change that and become more confident in using these platforms to connect with others in the industry.

Before I get into my other hopes for this class, here’s a bit about me and my writing:

I hold two editorial positions at Hot Metal Bridge: Nonfiction Co-Editor and Book Reviews Co-Editor. For the latter position, one of my main duties is the formatting and posting of reviews to the website, so I've learned quite a bit about WordPress through that… and I’ve found that I really have zero preference between it and Blogger. Though I think that WordPress is WAY easier to customize.

I spent this past summer in Boston as a Bedford/St. Martin’s intern. It was such an amazing experience, both personally and professionally, as I really hadn’t wandered too far from SW-PA before then. Though BSM is an educational publisher—not my area, exactly—it was great to sit in on editorial meetings and see what went on behind the scenes.

As for my writing, my most recent long-form piece was a photo essay on demolition and urban decay in Braddock, PA. I have a blog with my first draft of the piece and all of the associated photos. (Because of the photos, I want to keep the blog private; let me know if you’re interested in seeing it and I’ll add you as a reader.)