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"The Greatest Storyteller Working Today"

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Dick Whitman, Apr 12, 2011.

  1. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Slate says it's David Grann:

    http://www.slate.com/id/2290801/

    Hard to argue.

    When it comes to structuring pieces, though, Grann is a showman through and through, exulting in leading his readers through an ever-thickening plot with blinders on, building up our expectations in one direction, then yanking the rug out from under us—often to reveal another rug, soon to be yanked, beneath that one. As a college student, Grann had fiction-writing ambitions, and his best nonfiction stories are marvelous delivery systems of narrative pleasure. Real-life potboilers, they crackle with suspenseful developments, vivid characterizations, emotionally charged stakes, and unexpected reveals. If the endings weren't so satisfying, you'd never want the stories to stop.
     
  2. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Did Jones at least get nominated?
     
  3. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    Oh I know. I read all that. Just trying to make light.
     
  4. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I nominate Mitch Albom for his work with fiction. :D
     
  5. YGBFKM

    YGBFKM Guest

    Having been exposed to Grann's work recently, I just bookmarked the New Yorker. That sound you hear is everyone who's ever known me fainting. :D
     
  6. dreunc1542

    dreunc1542 Active Member

    I'm sending you the hospital bill for the concussion I just suffered when I fell and hit my head.
     
  7. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    He should go all Joe DiMaggio and insist on being introduced everywhere he goes as, "The Greatest Storyteller Working Today."
     
  8. typefitter

    typefitter Well-Known Member

    I might be embarrassing myself here, just for a change, but Grann didn't enter my universe until I picked up Lost City of Z in an airport. Since then, I've read all of his stuff in the New Yorker (loved "Mark of a Masterpiece" especially) and I really think he's one of the best going right now. Every story is just dead rock solid. I don't think he's an incredible stylist or anything like that; he's just a great reporter and a terrific storyteller. He's a master of structure.

    No idea where he came from, no idea how long he's been working at the New Yorker, no idea if he's a late bloomer or I've missed out for years... But Grann's a frightener, for sure.
     
  9. YGBFKM

    YGBFKM Guest

    That was posted on the latest Jones thread, where it belongs.
     
  10. lcjjdnh

    lcjjdnh Well-Known Member

    His article Re: Guatemala in a recent New Yorker was the best story I've read in quite some time. Planned to read the first section and put it down-an hour later I was still reading through it. Really outstanding work.
     
  11. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Sonuvabitch stole my bit...
     
  12. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Thanks to this thread I just recommended "The Lost City of Z" to a man who came in my library in search of something to read. He said he had recently read some book called "Head Cases" which was about the effect of injuries on the brain. He liked stuff like that. I started talking to him about the NFL and head injuries, which he was up on. He said he read something in GQ about it, which was better than The New Yorker, which has the best articles and which he usually comes in to read. So that jogged my memory of this.

    Good job, guys.
     
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