Mailbag

From Bill Marvel:

Maybe I missed something, but I'm puzzled by the absence on Gangrey of pieces on the OWS protests. I started my reporting career in 1961, and the growing anti-war movement attracted some of the best writers to do some of their best work. (Think Dan Wakefield, Norman Mailer.)

There's an ugly little voice that increasingly whispers to me: "Long-form narrative is irrelevant. It's obsessed with sob stories and basket cases and freaks. The best writers aren't writing about the most important or exciting things."

The Voice and I don't necesarily agree, but still it nags at me. If the kind of writing we prize is to survive as journalism and not just belles-lettres, it seems to me it has to root itself in what's happening right now — the definition of "news." Dying, babies, serial killers and such are timeless subjects. But timely subjects can also evoke timeless writing.