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How do you know when a story is right for you? I’ll mention the idea to my wife, and she’ll say, “Ah, that’s horseshit.” And I’ll get all defensive and argue with her, “ No it’s not, and the reason it’s not horseshit is . . . !” That’s when I know I’m hooked. It grows on me to the point where I start telling the story to people over and over again. Do you prefer generating ideas or taking assignments from editors? Some of my best stories have been other people’s ideas. For example, Lee Eisenberg, then the editor of Esquire, sent me out to do a profile of Ted Williams, who was famous for not cooperating with writers. Editors tend to call me with the stories that they can’t get done otherwise. There’s a certain kind of story that gets a reputation for being impossible. Great stories where the conventional wisdom is that they simply can’t be done. Like, “Ted Williams won’t talk to anybody!” or “Joe DiMaggio is completely unknowable!” or “Nobody can get inside national politics today because the process has been so sanitized.” But there are a few editors who have a feeling that perhaps these “impossible” stories could be done if they could just get a writer who was stubborn enough. They know that if they get me really going on the idea . . . well, I just can’t come home without it! It might take years, but I’ll eventually get it. So you’re the “go-to guy” when an editor needs a home run? I guess, although sometimes I wish they’d send me a few singles or doubles. I could sure use more frequent paychecks. Is it the same with book assignments? Yes, that’s what happened with my Joe DiMaggio biography. My editor, David Rosenthal at Simon & Schuster, had been trying to get DiMaggio to write a book for years. He’d written him letters, done research in the library about Joe’s life so that he could really talk to him. And Joe was the way Joe always was. He was polite and said “no” because there wasn’t enough money in it for him. I had just finished What It Takes and was looking around for another book. I told David that the only two things I know anything about are politics and baseball. So he said, “I’ll tell you the baseball story that nobody can do, and it’s the only baseball story out there worth doing.” That hooked me. Is that what happened with What It Takes? Sort of. I wanted to answer a fundamental question I had about American politics. I would watch the candidates on TV and they looked like nobody I knew—and not in a good way. They looked stiff and removed. Rehearsed, although not well-rehearsed. They looked like they were bound up in a million thoughts and doubts.
Now I’ve known a lot of politicians from when I worked for The Baltimore Sun, and that’s not how those guys are. And all these presidential candidates had once been city councilmen and state reps and congressmen themselves, just like the folks I knew. So I knew that something had happened to them on the way to the presidential campaign. And I wanted to know what that something was. That was the question I wrote What It Takes to answer for myself. How did you have the confidence to write such an ambitious first book? I had read all the presidential election books: Germond and Witcover, the Teddy White books, Dasher by Jim Wooten, and An American Melodrama by three London Sunday Times reporters Harry Evans sent to America to write a minute-by-minute account of the 1968 election. That was a really wonderful book. And it seemed to me I could do something like that today. So I called up my friend and ex-boss Jim Naughton, a veteran reporter who had covered the Carter campaign and administration for The Baltimore Sun and worked at The New York Times before that. I asked him, “Naughton, can this be done?” And he said, “Yes, but here is how you have to do it: you get in the plane, and when they come to you for your interview slot you say, ‘You know what? I don’t really need to interview the candidate. But, hey, would you mind if I just sat there while he does all the other interviews?’ ” You don’t ask any questions? Not one. I’d sit there for the first day, and the second day, and the third day, and on and on. And sooner or later, the candidate is going to get so comfortable with my being there that he will lean over to me after one of the interviews and say, “Damn, I fucked up that agriculture question again!” And at that moment I’ve moved from my side of the desk to his side of the desk. That’s the judo move I try to pull off: using his power to throw him where I want him to go. I’m always trying to be on his side of the desk. If I come in with my notebook and my list of questions, then I’m just another schmuck with a notebook and questions to be brushed off with the “message of the day,” or whatever form of manipulation is in vogue. But if I don’t have any questions—except for the basic one of What the Hell is Going on Here?— and I’m willing to hang around forever trying to see the world from his side of the desk, then I become something else entirely. Is this “non-interview” interview technique effective? Well, I can tell you what’s not effective. I’ve been interviewed a lot during book tours, and I see how newspaper people, in particular, do it. They’ll ask you a question. And as you start to talk they bend their heads to their notebooks and try to get down every word. They barely look at you again for forty-five minutes. Now that’s entirely the wrong way to get any sense of anybody! How do you conduct interviews?
- Page 3 and 4: Table of Contents Title Page Dedica
- Page 5 and 6: To Helen
- Page 7 and 8: Acclaim for The New New Journalism
- Page 9 and 10: Preface I had neither studied nor t
- Page 11 and 12: perceived as bizarre tribes one stu
- Page 13 and 14: work is the spirit with which he pr
- Page 15 and 16: for a movement than an advertisemen
- Page 17 and 18: and reporting (the latter developme
- Page 19 and 20: Crane did before them—bridge the
- Page 21 and 22: Journalists have revived the tradit
- Page 23 and 24: Sims, Norman, and Mark Kramer, eds.
- Page 25 and 26: infantrymen in the army of homeless
- Page 27 and 28: a marginal or strange subculture—
- Page 29 and 30: “Disdain” is too strong a word.
- Page 31 and 32: of the academy that I’d be assign
- Page 33 and 34: Well, not really. I was never comfo
- Page 35 and 36: sacred to me. I know that if I were
- Page 37 and 38: expand on brief notes, transcribe q
- Page 39 and 40: experienced Denver as a member of a
- Page 41 and 42: history or policy. Or than when I
- Page 43 and 44: Bruce Chatwin, anything by J. M. Co
- Page 45 and 46: Freed from the constraints of newsp
- Page 47: For his most recent book, How Israe
- Page 51 and 52: gathering information. So the first
- Page 53 and 54: I learned it in Baltimore when I wa
- Page 55 and 56: How did they respond? They were won
- Page 57 and 58: write anything down, but the conver
- Page 59 and 60: What kind of a presence do you like
- Page 61 and 62: earned him the moniker of “staff
- Page 63 and 64: I want to understand the lives of p
- Page 65 and 66: You haven’t done any celebrity jo
- Page 67 and 68: I never know. I do know that I don
- Page 69 and 70: When Children Want Children, I rent
- Page 71 and 72: I like doing interviews over meals
- Page 73 and 74: Do you believe journalism can lead
- Page 75 and 76: Supporting himself through odd jobs
- Page 77 and 78: the editor’s house, but it had a
- Page 79 and 80: their activities, takes precedence,
- Page 81 and 82: public policy, etc., play in your w
- Page 83 and 84: How do you get people to ignore you
- Page 85 and 86: American landscape to someone who h
- Page 87 and 88: tried to kill him, and a drive-by s
- Page 89 and 90: Has taking notes openly ever been a
- Page 91 and 92: anymore. I trust my editors more th
- Page 93 and 94: Do you see yourself as part of an h
- Page 95 and 96: JONATHAN HARR In February 1986, Jon
- Page 97 and 98: to have his application rejected. T
Now I’ve known a lot of politicians from when I worked for The Baltimore Sun, and that’s not<br />
how those guys are. And all these presidential candidates had once been city councilmen and state<br />
reps and congressmen themselves, just like the folks I knew. So I knew that something had happened<br />
to them on the way to the presidential campaign. And I wanted to know what that something was.<br />
That was the question I wrote What It Takes to answer for myself.<br />
How did you have the confidence to write such an ambitious first book?<br />
I had read all the presidential election books: Germond and Witcover, the Teddy White books,<br />
Dasher by Jim Wooten, and An American Melodrama by three London Sunday Times reporters Harry<br />
Evans sent to America to write a minute-by-minute account of the 1968 election. That was a really<br />
wonderful book. And it seemed to me I could do something like that today.<br />
So I called up my friend and ex-boss Jim Naughton, a veteran reporter who had covered the Carter<br />
campaign and administration for The Baltimore Sun and worked at The New York Times before that. I<br />
asked him, “Naughton, can this be done?” And he said, “Yes, but here is how you have to do it: you<br />
get in the plane, and when they come to you for your interview slot you say, ‘You know what? I don’t<br />
really need to interview the candidate. But, hey, would you mind if I just sat there while he does all<br />
the other interviews?’ ”<br />
You don’t ask any questions?<br />
Not one. I’d sit there for the first day, and the second day, and the third day, and on and on. And<br />
sooner or later, the candidate is going to get so comfortable with my being there that he will lean over<br />
to me after one of the interviews and say, “Damn, I fucked up that agriculture question again!”<br />
And at that moment I’ve moved from my side of the desk to his side of the desk. That’s the judo<br />
move I try to pull off: using his power to throw him where I want him to go. I’m always trying to be<br />
on his side of the desk. If I come in with my notebook and my list of questions, then I’m just another<br />
schmuck with a notebook and questions to be brushed off with the “message of the day,” or whatever<br />
form of manipulation is in vogue.<br />
But if I don’t have any questions—except for the basic one of What the Hell is Going on Here?—<br />
and I’m willing to hang around forever trying to see the world from his side of the desk, then I<br />
become something else entirely.<br />
Is this “non-interview” interview technique effective?<br />
Well, I can tell you what’s not effective. I’ve been interviewed a lot during book tours, and I see<br />
how newspaper people, in particular, do it. They’ll ask you a question. And as you start to talk they<br />
bend their heads to their notebooks and try to get down every word. They barely look at you again for<br />
forty-five minutes. Now that’s entirely the wrong way to get any sense of anybody!<br />
How do you conduct interviews?
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