More investigative journalism, and reverie

kw: article reviews, nonfiction, fiction, essays, collections, anthologies, magazine writing

It took no more than a couple of days to finish reading The Best American Magazine Writing 2015, edited by Sid Holt. To avoid further disturbing my sleep, I did more of the reading in the second half of the volume during the days! Articles worth special mention:

• Love and Ruin by James Vernini, first published in The Atavist. At 52 pages, this is probably the longest. It chronicles the lives of Nancy and Louis Dupree during their decades in Afghanistan, and the turmoils of that poor nation from 1949 onward. In 1978 Louis was expelled, but surveyed the Russia-Muhajideen war during frequent visits to Pakistan. Some say he participated in training anti-Russian fighters. But the memoir is more about Nancy, who carried on after his death in 1989. She became a beloved mother figure to many in Afghanistan, where she continues to spend part of her time even at age 89. It is a very touching survey of the changes she has seen, too frequently tragic and too seldom hopeful, in a country the world will not leave alone.
• Jackie's Goodbye by Tiffany Stanley, first published in National Journal. The author's aunt Jackie began to manifest symptoms of Alzheimer's dementia in her fifties. She was cared for by her increasingly over-stressed brother—the author's father—until 2012 when he suffered heart failure and Ms Stanley had to take over the care of both of them, but primarily of Jackie. Amidst a heartbreaking story of her aunt's decline and death after little more than two more years, Ms Stanley frankly describes the heartbreakingly banal indifference of every facet of the "health care" industry to these most needy ones. While many assisted-living and nursing-home facilities have "dementia care" units with very caring, and sometimes even well-trained nurses, few can afford to pay $6,000 - $9,000 per month. If you can't afford that, you're on your own. There is a big, big gap between "not affording" such horrendous costs, and being so totally broke that Medicaid will pay. But while awaiting Medicaid approval, from a few months to a year, you are still on your own. You can't take the time to hold a job to make the money to pay a half-time helper and still keep your own sanity together. Far too many places will admit someone who cannot show sufficient assets to pay for at least the first six or more months' residence. This touches a chord with me: my father spent half his net worth hiring caregivers during the last few years of my mother's life. He had seen what a supposedly "good" nursing home was like when his uncle had to be in one for his last few months. Dad was determined that his own wife would never enter such a place. She didn't. But he was in pretty poor shape by the time she died. Somehow, the little help my three brothers and I could offer, none of us living closer than a day's drive or a day's plane ride away, could suffice to give him more than a day or part of a day of respite. One of my mother's caregivers, a lovely woman named Mary, bonded with Mom so much that she had a nervous breakdown near the end of Mom's life and needed care herself. She got out of the nursing/caregiving field entirely.
• This Old Man by Roger Angell, first published in The New Yorker. Roger Angell is 93 (maybe 94 now), and wrote of how things really are for him. You could call this 16-page piece an extended answer to, "How are you?" The short answer is, "Not too bad, not too good." He writes about the paradox that many of the very aged are happier than those a generation younger; of the growing invisibility of the elderly, as if the young think, "You've had your turn. We'll be polite, but we don't care what you think"; about sex and companionship, which makes those who are "only 50-60" or so very squeamish: what, we're supposed to become neuters at some defined age? Ask my 94-year-old Dad about that; he wishes he could return to the facility he stayed at until early this year, where he had a girlfriend, and he still phones her almost daily. Her 100th birthday was last week. She craves his company also. I remember, when I was 35 and Dad was 60, asking him, "What is it like to be 60?" (It seemed pretty old to me at the time). He said, "It is pretty much like being 25, except things take longer. Now that I am just a little shy of 70, I agree. The mind and our attitudes don't change much, and because our body changes gradually, we get used to it, if a little chagrined sometimes. Should I live to be 95 or so, I hope to do it with the grace of Roger Angell and the vigor of my father. When Dad says, "Don't get old," I reply, "It beats the alternative." We both know it is true.

I applaud Sid Holt and his helpers on this and the prior volumes in the series, for gathering articles that make me think, make me feel strongly (sometimes against my will), and make me say, "I'm glad I read that."

The pleasures of investigative journalism

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, fiction, essays, collections, anthologies, magazine writing

Sometimes I read two or more books and journals at a time, and then I don't tear through a book in my usual 3-4 days. This is the case with the latest edition of my new favorite nonfiction anthology, The Best American Magazine Writing 2015, edited by Sid Holt. While reading a volume of CWWN, I also read articles in the two journals I subscribe to, Wired and Scientific American. The 2015 edition of TBAMW was kept on my bedside table, and I confess that, while I usually read to put myself to sleep, sometimes an article kept me up quite a bit longer than I expected!

I am currently halfway through the volume, having read 8 extended articles, with 11 slightly shorter ones to go. A few that I wish to discuss particularly:

• The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates, first published in The Atlantic. The essay is nearly 50 pages long, and probably occupied about 30 pages in The Atlantic. The author's subject is not just reparations for black slavery, which went on in America for more than 300 years. He focuses on a more modern phenomenon, one that is still occurring at such a rate that OECD cannot afford to adequately enforce existing laws: Redlining in real estate markets in Chicago. Chicago is Coates's prime example, but the practice is rampant in cities of all sizes throughout the country. When I took the "Real Estate Course" a few years ago, they discussed redlining, but the attitude was dismissive, as though "it doesn't happen here". But I know it does. The article's ten sections connect the attitudes of slave owners toward their slaves with the attitudes of bankers and real estate brokers and agents, and others who continue to profit from the so-called "sub-prime mortgage crisis". This article did more than anything else I have read—and I confess I have not read very much—to give me a more favorable attitude toward reparations. I still suspect that any large and sustained effort to actually provide reparations could do more harm than good, perhaps much more. But we do need to answer these questions: To whom are reparations to be paid, and in what form? From whom will the funds come? In the case of reparations targeting Redlining over the past 50-80 years, I'd be in favor of requiring forgiveness of all the mortgages made to African-Americans in the Redlined neighborhoods. But the hard part would be the followup education and training of the new landowners; most would be overwhelmed and at an entire loss, and likely to lose their windfall. The bankers who participated in this—that is, nearly all major banks' officers—have grown obscenely rich from the predatory practices that Coates outlines. They, more than any, must absorb the blow. But other measures will be harder to determine, harder to implement. Broad-brush approaches don't ever work out like you expect. It is not a subject we can safely ignore any more.
• I Don't Care if You Like It by Rebecca Traister, first published in The New Republic. This is one of three of Ms Traister's articles in TNR that together attained a Finalist award. It is a concise (~10 pp) and excellently written slam of the male attitudes that keep women objectified. It focuses on a signal event in which Amy Poehler put Jimmy Fallon in his place for chiding her with an "I don't like it" statement. What she said was a rather profane version of the article's title; naturally it contained the F-bomb. But how much of the dancing on eggshells that women must do to be accepted is predicated on male acceptance? My wife reads Women's Day, mainly for recipe ideas. But most of the articles are about becoming better and better at pleasing men. No wonder the recent case of the Stanford swimmer raping an unconscious woman garnered only a 6-month sentence. After all, the victim's function is to please men, right? The current news ties this event to "white privilege", but it is really about "male privilege". I read an article by a woman who had tried in vain to get her husband and sons to "help around the house." Finally, she bought a bunch of 2-ounce Dixie cups, a big box of plastic flatware, and a big pile of paper plates, and announced the following. She would make her own meals, eat off the good china with the good silverware, and clean up after herself. The men were on their own, but were not allowed to touch anything besides the paper and plasticware unless they washed it immediately thereafter. She would do only her own laundry. They could not use the pots and pans for cooking unless they washed them immediately after the meal. She would not clean up after them. I'd like to have seen a follow-up article by her a year later. I thank God for two things in my life: a no-nonsense Japanese wife who continues to train her husband, and a compliant nature in that I accept her training. It took a few decades, but our home is comparatively peaceful and we're a happy couple. 
• Inside the Iron Closet: What it's Like to be Gay in Putin's Russia by Jeff Sharlet, first published in GQ. I am appalled, but I suppose I should have expected it. Russia has always been one of the least-accepting of demi-Western cultures, towards homosexuality, and towards sexual expression in general. Frankly put, being gay or lesbian in Russia right now is very similar to being a runaway slave in Alabama in 1850. Though the lack of a black skin makes it slightly harder to detect a gay Russian, otherwise, it is the same: every hand is against you, police just smile should you dare to report being attacked, and if you have children they are likely to be removed from the home and raised by others with "better moral probity".

Does all that seem like good bedside reading? I'm the sort that relishes good, thought-provoking writing, even when my reason for reading is to lull myself to sleep.

A satisfactory collection of journalism

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, fiction, essays, collections, anthologies, magazine writing

During the past week or so, my reading fare has been a pleasant, and bracing, succession of articles under the title The Best American Magazine Writing 2014, edited by Sid Holt. I like collections of essays and articles, but I approach each new collection with mixed feelings, including a large measure of trepidation that yet one more editor's choices might be significant more for promoting a political ideology than for presenting good writing about interesting subjects. Fortunately, the editorial instincts of Mr. Holt and this volume's panel of judges are firmly based on quality of thought and writing skill. Both his preface and the entertaining Introduction by Mark Jannot of the National Audobon Society stress that they collected good journalism. After all, the Librarian's term for a "magazine" is Journal.

In most cases, I finished each selection feeling glad I'd read it. For two pieces, I read far enough to determine that, however well crafted, the subject didn't hold my interest, and so not being persuaded to add a new interest to my quiver, I skipped out and began reading the next item.

This is not to say that these were all "pleasant" pieces; I am not all puppies-and-unicorns, after all. Journalism must open eyes to be useful at all. "The Dream Boat" by Luke Mogelson and "Jahar's World" by Janet Reitman are stellar examples of deep-diving journalism into unpleasant and even risky subjects. For the former, Mr. Mogelson and a friend impersonated Georgian refugees and took passage across a choppy piece of the Indian Ocean, to live the experience of modern "boat people" trying to reach Christmas Island and ultimately the Australian mainland. This came with a significant risk of dying at sea. For the latter there was less risk, but great interviewing skill was necessary to unravel the background of the Tsarnaev family as Ms Reitman attempted to discern the twisted threads that led to the Boston bombing. And the personal essay "Sliver of Sky" by Barry Lopez, in which he tells of being abused over years by a trusted family friend, and of the decades-long consequences for him and his family, was very uncomfortable to read, but should be necessary reading by parents and all others who genuinely care for the welfare of children.

Two long essays required the writer to spend repeated and extended time with the subject. Wright Thompson had to resist the alluring pull that surrounds great celebrity, almost like orbiting a black hole, to prepare "Michael Jordan Has Not Left the Building". And for "Dangerous", Joshua Davis spent much time, always on edge, sometimes appalled, and occasionally terrified, with John McAfee as the former king of anti-virus software spiraled into paranoia in Belize. Mr. McAfee epitomizes the difference between "immoral" and "amoral", being a poster child for the latter.

One more in particular: "Bret, Unbroken" by Steve Friedman puts the reader inside the experience of a young man who suffered a terrible injury, whose partial recovery was miraculous enough, yet who will never fully recover, and the ironically handicapping response of nearly all others to his impaired self. His subject, Bret Dunlop, found a tiny island of acceptance in the running community. I think the writing style,

"You wanted to be more than a bartender. You applied for jobs around town, but the people hiring said you should be able to type. Of course you could type. But you couldn't do it fast enough."

is the only vehicle with any hope of helping us understand this uniquely intelligent man and the crushing frustration that dogs nearly every minute of every day. "Unbroken" indeed!

This book will test your limits, as good journalism ought to do.

Writing is getting better again

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, collections, magazine writing

In past years I've read the O. Henry Awards collections of "best stories", but this year I couldn't find one. I did find The Best American Magazine Writing 2012, edited by Sid Holt, and that will have to do. The volume features 27 pieces by 19 writers from a broad selection of American literary magazines.

Several of the longer pieces are investigative-journalistic in nature. An example is "The Apostate" by Lawrence Wright. Nearly all the articles are, to various degrees, journalism. I was pleased to see that these articles have very little editorial content or tone, compared to much of today's "journalism" (Editors of newspapers and news journals have mostly ceded editorializing to their writers, and very little true journalism is to be found). Only one piece is fictional, "The Hox River Window" by Karen Russell. As all the best fiction does, it puts you into a place and time, in this instance, the sod-hut culture of the homesteading era.

I had a bit of trepidation embarking on this volume. I have been severely put off by literary writing in the past few decades, finding it either boring or shrill. I hardly read literary journals any more. I suspect most of the writing is still the same, but Mr. Holt and his fellows have gathered examples of writing that makes a fellow glad he read them.