The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft (Paperback)

~ Robert Boynton (Author) "The first time Ted Conover was asked if he was a tramp he wasn't sure how to respond..." (more)
Key Phrases: writing day look, long form nonfiction, reportorial stance, The New Yorker, Rosa Lee, Wall Street (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From 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. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Building on the tradition of literary journalism--from nineteenth-century 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. Interviewees 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. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (March 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140003356X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400033560
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #152,444 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful interviews make for a great read, August 12, 2005

By	Sarah Williams (Middlebury, VT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For any inspiring journalists or writers, avid readers, and followers of media trends in this country, this book is a great look into how journalists and writers do what they do.

The book is organized as a series of interview transcripts, asking each reporter how they do what they do. From "What is your daily routine?" to "How do you come up with ideas?" and "How do you decide who to interview?", the questions are very nicely worded to offer the reader the right information.

What emerges through the unique voices of each writer is a picture of creative non-fiction, a genre combining old-school reporting methods and forward-looking creative thinking and ways of presenting information.

This book is hard to read in one sitting, since the questions in each interview are pretty much the same and can get repetitive. However, it is a great book to pick up from time to time and read bits of and I certainly have loved working through it.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a look inside . . . , June 12, 2005

By	erica2 (New York) - See all my reviews

If you want to know how those stylish writers at the New Yorker pull off those long, fascinating "fact" pieces, this is the book for you. The author has interviewed over a dozen of what he calls the "new new" journalists, and the interviews reveal some of their tricks of the trade, working methods, approach, attitude, etc. I think those who aspire to write in this way will get the most out of this book, because reading it is like sitting down with these top-flight journalists and picking their brains.

I give it 3 stars because it's not a work of art or anything . . . I mean, the same questions, more or less, are repeated in each interview, and the intro to each chapter distills information and quotes that follow in the chapter, so I don't see this book as being a grand literary achievement per se. But it's useful, and I came away from it with an increased appreciation of how hard these journalists work--sometimes staying with the same story for months or years, and putting hundreds or thousands of hours into one long article. (Of course, when they expand the article into a book, the time they invested continues to produce returns.) Anyway, if you are a journalist or are someone interested in the way high-level literary journalism is currently being carried out, you'll find what you're looking for in this paperback original.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The New-News Off Old Time Razmatazz, June 10, 2005

By	Michael J. Sherry "Il Pazzo" (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Literary nonfiction, once considered the asinine sidecar to the novel's Harley Davidson, made extensive gains in the 1960's with the emergence of such charismatic storytellers as Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote. Christening themselves the New Journalists, these writers were prone to extended sprees of rock stardom with a notepad, often at the expense of factual sincerity. Such landmark texts as Wolfe's The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test or Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas made reporting secondary to entertainment value.

The New New Journalism by Robert S. Boynton bawls a hefty yawp in announcing, "The days in which nonfiction writers test the limits of language and form have largely passed." To prove it, Boynton, the director of New York University's graduate magazine journalism program, has compiled nineteen of his interviews with contemporary journalists who bear more resemblance to the muckrakers of the 19th Century than to the famously dubbed New Journalists of the 20th. We find that the biting sizzle of a Hunter S. Thompson has been swapped for the incessant inquiry and cataloguing of the New News.

But even if such glory mongering has been overthrown by a militia of Joe Fridays who want "just the facts," readers of today's non-fiction are not complaining thanks to the sheer depth of revelation sustained by what Rolling Nowhere author Ted Conover considers "participant observer" journalism. It is an arena where relentless scrutinizers of fact avoid leaping into the fracas themselves, offering instead a detached play-by-play of the weighty social, political, and cultural racket that surrounds them. At times they must become what Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air, calls "the worm in the apple."

If nothing else, this book is a handy crash course for aspiring writers, and it leaves readers speculating about future styles of non-fiction. Perhaps "New New New" Journalism will preserve honest reporting without dumping the literary aspirations of Wolfe's era. In the meantime, Boynton's text holds that reportorial intensity must eclipse artistic razzmatazz.