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Dispatches from a Life in the Press
by Calvin Trillin
A fascinating portrait of journalism and the people who make it, told through pieces collected from the incomparable six-decade career of bestselling author and longtime New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin
I've been writing about the press almost as long as I've been in the game. At some point, it occurred to me that disparate pieces from various places in various styles amounted to a picture from multiple angles of what the press has been like over the years since I became a practitioner and an observer.
Calvin Trillin has reported serious pieces across America for The New Yorker, covered the civil rights movement in the South for Time, and written comic verse for The Nation. But one of his favorite subjects over the years—a superb fit for his unique combination of reportage and humor—has been his own professional environment: the American press.
In The Lede, Trillin gathers his incisive, often hilarious writing on reporting, reporters, and their world. There are pieces on a legendary crime reporter in Miami and on an erudite film critic in Dallas who once a week transformed himself from a connoisseur of the French nouvelle vague into a fan of movies like Mother Riley Meets the Vampire. Trillin writes about the paucity of gossip columns in Russia, the icebreaker he'd use if he met one of his subjects socially (e.g.: "You must be wondering why I referred to you in Time as a dork robot"), and the origins of a publication called Beautiful Spot: A Magazine of Parking.
Uniting all of this is Trillin's signature combination of empathy, humor, and graceful prose. The Lede is an invaluable portrait of one our fundamental American institutions from a master journalist.
"In this collection of short and long pieces culled from more than 50 years of reporting, Trillin presents a clever, wry, piercing, and even poetic love song to journalism and the writers, editors, columnists, and readers who show, with every word, that they are the people's champions." —Booklist (starred review)
"An invaluable collection of observations about journalism authored by a beloved American reporter and humorist ... Much of this book is hilarious, and it seems impossible to suppress a grin even when reading essays about the most serious of subjects... . [Trillin's writing mixes] wit, sharp observational powers and recall, reporting skills, and poignancy. This book should be savored by admirers, critics, and practitioners of journalism and journalists, as well as anyone who appreciates first-rate writing, humor, and engaging reporting. A brilliant compilation." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"This entertaining collection ... showcase[s] Trillin's intelligence and wit ... A spirited look at how the news is made." —Publishers Weekly
This information about The Lede was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Calvin Trillin is a long-time staff writer at The New Yorker. He lives in New York City.
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