Reporting the inner-thoughts of dead subjects?

He said he knew him for a week. I don't know that he conducted extensive interviews. He was there to write about the sport for a Times feature, I assume.

 

Did he get access to a diary?

Or, in this day and age, some emails and/or social media traffic?

 

"Damn, it's warm down here," Adolf thought.

 

He quotes directly, on occasion, from some of Mevoli's message board posts.

 

On Mevoli's rivalry with his coach: "Nick could see the conflict of interest plain as day."

 

The head of Destalt took to calling Ashley and Nick “America’s Pink and Blue.” Nick liked that. In his mind it connected them all the more.

 

One night when Nick was on his way to the Metropolitan Pool to do laps he saw the young, blonde girl from church walking home. He didn’t know Denny’s story yet, but he knew she was in pain.

 

OK, looks like he told his uncle:

He knew Nick had a habit of brooding, and Paul had both the strength and sensitivity to get to the heart of any difficulty without intruding. “I can tell. Something’s eating you. What is it?”

“I’m in love. I met someone, and she could be the one.” Nick told Paul about Ashley Chapman. He gushed about her athletic ability, her beauty, and their conversations.

“That’s great, Nick! That’s really great, man! What’s the trouble?”

“I can’t have her. She’s married. Her husband is a great guy, and I’m fucked.”

Paul knew what unrequited love felt like. Before he’d married his wife, Terri, he’d fallen for a different girl, but the timing was off. Paul had offered advice when Nick was troubled countless times, but that night he had no answer. He just put his arm around his nephew and opened another beer for him. There was nothing else to say.

 

Ask the sainted Gary Smith.
He would practically address the subject's id in second-person omniscient.

 

Or Mitch Albom. He once got so far inside Mateen Cleaves' head, Cleaves thought he was in St. Louis.

 

Well, there's a new Mitchie, thankfully. The guy who once stalked and threatened to fight readers is now playing violin mood music at cancer wards.
Pretending he hasn't joined the ranks of the phoniest awards-chasers in the business.
Doyel is the follicular-challenged Mitchie.