“Why’s this so good?” No. 75: Dan P. Lee and the father who lost everything

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Tag Archives: John Jeremiah Sullivan

“Why’s this so good?” No. 75: Dan P. Lee and the father who lost everything

April 9, 2013 – 8:53 am

My estimable friend and former colleague Paul Kix recently wrote a column in this space on John Jeremiah Sullivan. In it he cited an essay Sullivan wrote about the art of writing: A fundamental law of storytelling is: withhold information. As the writer Paul Metcalf put it, “The only real work in creative endeavor is [...]

By Joe Keohane | Posted in #longreads, why's this so good? | Also tagged Dan P. Lee, Joe Keohane, New York magazine, Paul Kix | Comments (0)

“Why’s this so good?” No. 71: John Jeremiah Sullivan and “Upon This Rock”

February 12, 2013 – 9:24 am

Last summer, John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote an essay about Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom!, and amid his deft and borderline genius thoughts on the novel – “It…dramatize[s] historical consciousness itself, not just human lives but the forest of time in which the whole notion of human life must find its only meaning” – Sullivan said something telling [...]

By Paul Kix | Posted in why's this so good? | Also tagged Christopher Hitchins, GQ, Paul Kix, William Faulkner | Comments (6)

Politics & storytelling, a sampler: Thompson, McGinniss, Sullivan, Lepore, Bowden, Bellow

November 6, 2012 – 10:06 am

Why hasn’t anybody Hunter S. Thompsonized this election? Or have they, and we missed it? Esquire’s Charlie Pierce approacheth – In the interest of keeping you abreast of news that hasn’t happened yet, I would like to introduce you to what the intellectuals in the employ of the Glenn Beck Empire will be saying on [...]

By Paige Williams | Posted in #longreads | Also tagged Byliner, Charlie Pierce, Columbia Journalism Review, Esquire, GQ, Hunter S. Thompson, Jill Lepore, Joe McGinniss, Roger Ailes, Rolling Stone, Saul Bellow, The Chicago Tribune, the New York Mirror, Vanity Fair | Comments (0)

“Why’s This So Good?” No. 54: John Jeremiah Sullivan and partisan politics

August 14, 2012 – 8:30 am

Politics should, in theory, be the subject of some of the most compelling narrative journalism. There’s built-in drama! There are winners and losers! The stakes are high! That’s why it’s so depressing that most politics stories, even those of the narrative variety, are painfully boring. They tend to fall into one of two traps – and [...]

By Ann Friedman | Posted in #longreads, why's this so good? | Also tagged GQ | Comments (1)

The best magazine features of 2011: an ASME sampler

April 12, 2012 – 8:43 am

National Magazine Award judges have a tough job this year as they choose a winner in the features category. There’s the sobering story about a corporate attorney’s mysterious death in Guatemala; the bizarre tale of a pair of young international arms dealers; the moving account of two dozen strangers braving a massive tornado; a fable-like piece [...]

By Paige Williams | Posted in narrative news | Also tagged 5280, American Society of Magazine Editors, ASME, David Grann, Esquire, GQ, Guy Lawson, Los Angeles magazine, Luke Dittrich, Mark Bowden, Michael Paterniti, Mike Kessler, Natasha Gardner, National Magazine Awards, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair | Comments (0)

What we’re reading: baseball, life at Disney World, and strange summer stories

June 23, 2011 – 11:41 am

A man with advanced ALS heads out for a fishing trip with his wife. A reporter goes to Walt Disney World with his children and a reefer-addicted friend. A Korean-American sportswriter over at the intriguing new Grantland site reflects on his cultural confusion when Ichiro Suzuki came to play for the Seattle Mariners. (Should he be [...]

By Andrea Pitzer | Posted in words | Also tagged Adam Curtis, BBC, Deborah Blum, George Packer, Grantland, Indianapolis Monthly, Jay Caspian Kang, Lapham's Quarterly, Megan McCloskey, Paris Review, Stars and Stripes, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Tony Rehagen | Comments (0) Sensationnel gagner au blackjack vous moisit sur ce site super! | Memphis wedding catering

What we’re reading: underground art, sleepy shrinks and killings by a CIA contractor in Pakistan

March 22, 2011 – 2:44 pm

This week’s installment is a grab bag, offering both comedy (a courtroom debate over what exactly a copying machine is) and tragedy (the tsunami in Japan). These stories’ styles also vary wildly, ranging from a non-narrative yet suspenseful investigation into the killing of two Pakistani men by a CIA contractor to an unsettlingly intimate encounter [...]

By Andrea Pitzer | Posted in words | Also tagged Daphne Merkin, Evan Osnos, Foreign Policy, longreads, New York, Scott Horton, Slate, Stephen Metcalf, The Browser, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Paris Review | Comments (1)

Tag Archives: John Jeremiah Sullivan