Calvin Trillin is an annoyingly good writer
In journalism, the “lede” is the introduction to a story, a sentence or paragraph designed to entice readers to continue.
For example, the lede in a review of Calvin Trillin’s The Lede might be: Calvin Trillin is an annoyingly good writer.
Presumably, the juxtaposition of “annoyingly” and “good” will beguile readers: “What can this mean?” they’ll ask. “I guess there’s only one way to find out. I have to continue reading.”
But the better the lede, the more important it is to justify those words. In Trillin’s case, however, that’s simple.
Trillin is a longtime contributor to the New Yorker, where he usually writes lengthy articles on subjects that catch his fancy — from the murder of a farmer’s wife in Iowa to the life and times of Joe Bob Briggs, a controversial drive-in film critic for a Dallas newspaper.
He’s also written more than 30 books, including fiction; paeans to his late wife (About Alice), dad (Messages From My Father) and friend (Remembering Denny); and essays about his experiences covering the South during the Civil Rights movement of the ’60s (Jackson, 1964). He’s written three books about food — his Tummy Trilogy — as well as a humour column and spending time as what he called a “deadline poet,” composing weekly political doggerel for the Nation.
Clearly, he’s good. The annoying part is that he’s good at everything. Trillin immerses himself in his stories. He doesn’t just interview the subject of his articles, but also their friends and their friends’ friends. Also, he is simply a gifted writer, with a stylish way with words.
The Lede is a collection of stories about writing and writers. There are so many quotable sections, I don’t know where to stop. Consider this from a 2003 profile of New York Times journalist R.W. Apple Jr.
“Apple famously sees to his early-morning tasks … while encased in one of the brightly striped nightshirts made for him by Harvie & Hudson, of Jermyn Street, the same firm that makes his dress shirts, so that a house guest not yet fully recovered from a late night at the Apple table can be startled by the impression that a particularly festive party tent has somehow found its way indoors.”
In one sentence we learn that Apple is something of a dandy, a little taken with himself and overweight — and we learn it with almost poetic flair.
Trillin describes another journalist who prefers short sentences as though “he was paid by the period.”
He writes about journalist/ novelist Edna Buchanan, disgraced newspaper mogul Conrad Black and a journey to find the best barbecue in Texas, and crafts moving eulogies for pals Russell Baker, Molly Ivins and Murray Kempton.
One of his first poems was about Richard Nixon adviser John Sununu, titled If You Knew What Sununu. If you knew what I know, you’d run out and buy this book right away, if only to remember what writing is like when it goes past 140 characters.