Editor’s Corner
July 11, 2008
Common stories, told uncommonly
By
Constance Hale and Andrea Pitzer
When we considered this month’s featured narrative, the cliché “there’s no such thing as a new story” came to mind. We often favor narratives that surprise by taking us to new corners of the world. But the truth is, there are certain topics that journalists, to best serve their readers, must return to again and again.
One such topic is aging and the concomitant burdens of caregiving. The problem never goes away, and as Time claims more victims, there is always a new audience eager for insight. Three years ago we featured “What Are We Going to Do With Dad?” by geriatrician Jerald Winakur. Other related stories we’ve spotlighted range from “Letting Go: Dylan’s last days,” on parents who remove their disabled son from life support, to “Offering an Education in Aging,” on the world of elderly nuns and their participation in a medical study. (The editors of this site are intimately familiar with the narrative challenges of this evergreen subject: Constance Hale’s “My Father, Lost and Found” ran in the October 2000 issue of Health magazine.)
In this month’s selection, “Caring for Tommy,” which ran in The Roanoke Times, we were impressed with the ways Beth Macy used narrative elements to make such a common story uncommon. Her handling of Tommy and Linda Rhodes relies on wonderful dialogue and scenes; her attentive reporting doesn’t ignore prickly family dynamics; her structure poignantly reflects the arc of decline.
We also welcomed the paper’s multimedia approach, in which the narrative potential of photography and videography were also brought to bear on such a story, with Josh Meltzer’s camera work informing the print version and Macy’s reporting spurring Meltzer on to new footage.
If one way to learn the varietal characteristics of a wine grape is to taste fine samples from various winemakers, one way to learn narrative technique may be to read fine stories from various literary writers. Recommended reading this month includes John Bailey’s Elegy for Iris, a book-length account of his wife’s descent into dementia. Jonathan Franzen’s “My Father’s Brain” presents the subject from the child’s point of view.
We will explore various aspects of narrative here at the Walter Lippmann House in late September, when we host the three-day Nieman Seminar for Narrative Editors. Our speakers will include Adam Moss (editor in chief of New York), David Talbot (founder of Salon as well as a new company producing narratives in various media), Stuart Warner (special projects editor at The Plain Dealer), and Clark Boyd (public-radio correspondent and podcaster for The World).
Between now and then, we hope to feature some “summer reading”—personal essays, humor, and cultural reporting. Readers who completed our recent survey requested some different genres, and we will happily deliver. If you have a favorite example, please send it to us.