The New New Journalism

Informationen zum Autor Robert Boynton Klappentext Forty years after Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and Gay Talese launched the New Journalism movement, Robert S. Boynton sits down with nineteen practitioners of what he calls the New New Journalism to discuss their methods, writings and careers. The New New Journalists are first and foremost brilliant reporters who immerse themselves completely in their subjects. Jon Krakauer accompanies a mountaineering expedition to Everest. Ted Conover works for nearly a year as a prison guard. Susan Orlean follows orchid fanciers to reveal an obsessive subculture few knew existed. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc spends nearly a decade reporting on a family in the South Bronx. And like their muckraking early twentieth-century precursors, they are drawn to the most pressing issues of the day: Alex Kotlowitz, Leon Dash, and William Finnegan to race and class; Ron Rosenbaum to the problem of evil; Michael Lewis to boom-and-bust economies; Richard Ben Cramer to the nitty gritty of politics. How do they do it? In these interviews, they reveal the techniques and inspirations behind their acclaimed works, from their felt-tip pens, tape recorders, long car rides, and assumed identities; to their intimate understanding of the way a truly great story unfolds. Interviews with: Gay Talese Jane Kramer Calvin Trillin Richard Ben Cramer Ted Conover Alex Kotlowitz Richard Preston William Langewiesche Eric Schlosser Leon Dash William Finnegan Jonathan Harr Jon Krakauer Adrian Nicole LeBlanc Michael Lewis Susan Orlean Ron Rosenbaum Lawrence Weschler Lawrence WrightTed Conover The first time Ted Conover was asked if he was a tramp he wasn't sure how to respond. The son of a successful lawyer, Conover had been jumping on and off trains for months, riding the rails as research for his college anthropology thesis. He certainly looked the part; even his parents didn't recognize him when he showed up on their doorstep. In fact, he had entered the life so completely that when another tramp tried to jump into his boxcar (a violation of hobo etiquette), Conover barely hesitated before stepping on the man's hand, sending him flying off the moving train. I guess I am, he answered uneasily, all too aware of the vast expanseeconomic, social, intellectualseparating him from his veteran-tramp interlocutor. It is this expanse that Conover has spent the last two decades exploring, first in Rolling Nowhere (1984), the cult classic he wrote about his hobo travels, and then in his three subsequent books Coyotes (1987), Whiteout (1991), and Newjack (2000)about Mexican illegal aliens, Aspen celebrities, and prison guards. Together, they have cemented Conover's reputation as one of the finest participatory journalists of his generation. Those who have read only one or two of Conover's works might cubbyhole him as the bard of gritty, rough-and-tumble subcultures. While not untrue, the description is incomplete. It obscures Conover's real subject: the fine lines separating us from them, and the elaborate rituals and markersparts of town, railroad tracks and boulevards, places in the heart and mind, he writes in Coyotes that we have developed to bolster such distinctions. In Conover's hands, migrant workers, rootless hoboes, and prison guards become vivid, morally ambiguous characters, deserving of praise and scorn, admiration and pity. Without sacrificing the commitment of the early-twentieth-century muckrakers, or the gusto of the nineteenth-century literary adventurers in whose footsteps he walks, Conover combines a sociologist's eye for detail with a novelist's sense of drama and compassion, as The New York Times 's Michiko Kakutani wrote of Coyotes . Born in 1958 in Okinawa, Japan, where ...

Auteur

Robert Boynton

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Forty years after Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, and Gay Talese launched the New Journalism movement, Robert S. Boynton sits down with nineteen practitioners of what he calls the New New Journalism to discuss their methods, writings and careers.

The New New Journalists are first and foremost brilliant reporters who immerse themselves completely in their subjects. Jon Krakauer accompanies a mountaineering expedition to Everest. Ted Conover works for nearly a year as a prison guard. Susan Orlean follows orchid fanciers to reveal an obsessive subculture few knew existed. Adrian Nicole LeBlanc spends nearly a decade reporting on a family in the South Bronx. And like their muckraking early twentieth-century precursors, they are drawn to the most pressing issues of the day: Alex Kotlowitz, Leon Dash, and William Finnegan to race and class; Ron Rosenbaum to the problem of evil; Michael Lewis to boom-and-bust economies; Richard Ben Cramer to the nitty gritty of politics. How do they do it? In these interviews, they reveal the techniques and inspirations behind their acclaimed works, from their felt-tip pens, tape recorders, long car rides, and assumed identities; to their intimate understanding of the way a truly great story unfolds.

Interviews with:
Gay Talese
Jane Kramer
Calvin Trillin
Richard Ben Cramer
Ted Conover
Alex Kotlowitz
Richard Preston
William Langewiesche
Eric Schlosser
Leon Dash
William Finnegan
Jonathan Harr
Jon Krakauer
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Michael Lewis
Susan Orlean
Ron Rosenbaum
Lawrence Weschler
Lawrence Wright

Échantillon de lecture
Ted Conover

The first time Ted Conover was asked if he was a tramp he wasn’t sure how to respond. The son of a successful lawyer, Conover had been jumping on and off trains for months, riding the rails as research for his college anthropology thesis. He certainly looked the part; even his parents didn’t recognize him when he showed up on their doorstep. In fact, he had entered the life so completely that when another tramp tried to jump into his boxcar (a violation of hobo etiquette), Conover barely hesitated before stepping on the man’s hand, sending him flying off the moving train. “I guess I am,” he answered uneasily, all too aware of the vast expanse—economic, social, intellectual—separating him from his veteran-tramp interlocutor.

It is this expanse that Conover has spent the last two decades exploring, first in Rolling Nowhere (1984), the cult classic he wrote about his hobo travels, and then in his three subsequent books—Coyotes (1987), Whiteout (1991), and Newjack (2000)—about Mexican illegal aliens, Aspen celebrities, and prison guards. Together, they have cemented Conover’s reputation as one of the finest participatory journalists of his generation.

Those who have read only one or two of Conover’s works might cubbyhole him as the bard of gritty, rough-and-tumble subcultures. While not untrue, the description is incomplete. It obscures Conover’s real subject: the fine lines separating “us” from “them,” and the elaborate rituals and markers—“parts of town, railroad tracks and boulevards, places in the heart and mind,” he writes in Coyotes—that we have developed to bolster such distinctions.

In Conover’s hands, migrant workers, rootless hoboes, and prison guards become vivid, morally ambiguous characters, deserving of praise and scorn, admiration and pity. Without sacrificing the commitment of the early-twentieth-century muckrakers, or the gusto of the nineteenth-century literary adventurers in whose footsteps he walks, Conover combines “a sociologist’s eye for detail with a novelist’s sense of drama and compassion,” as The New York Times’s Michiko Kakutani wrote of Coyotes.

Born in 1958 in Okinawa, Japan, where his father was stationed as a navy pilot, Conover was raised in an affluent Denver neighborhood. In high school, he was bused to a newly…