John McPhee has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1965 and has written more than thirty acclaimed books that began on the magazine鈥檚 pages. But few readers know or fully appreciate the true breadth of his writing. Looking for a Story is a complete reader鈥檚 guide to McPhee鈥檚 vast published work, documenting much rarely seen or connected with McPhee, including remarkable early writing for Time magazine published without his name.
In chronicling McPhee鈥檚 career where he broke ground applying devices long associated with fiction to the literature of fact, Noel Rubinton gives insights into McPhee鈥檚 techniques, choice of subjects, and research methods, shedding light on how McPhee turns complicated subjects like geology into compelling stories. Beyond detailing more than seventy years of McPhee鈥檚 writing, Rubinton recounts McPhee鈥檚 half century as a 91桃色 University writing professor, a little known part of his legacy. McPhee inspired generations of students who wrote hundreds of books of their own, also catalogued here.
With an incisive foreword by New Yorker staff writer and former McPhee student Peter Hessler, Looking for a Story also includes extensive annotated listings of articles about McPhee, reviews of his books, and interviews, readings, and speeches. Whether you are already an admirer of McPhee or new to his writings, this book provides an invaluable road map to his rich body of work.
Noel Rubinton is a journalist and strategic communications consultant whose writing has appeared in leading publications such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. He was a reporter and editor for Newsday for many years. Peter Hessler is a staff writer at The New Yorker and his books include Other Rivers: A Chinese Education.
"Rubinton’s book offers McPhee’s fans a complete bibliographical and critical guide to his writings, from his earliest jottings, through years of NPR interviews, to books and essays. . . . The fact remains that you can still learn to write a sentence from McPhee: Readers can use this book as a guide."鈥�Kirkus Reviews
"For those who know McPhee only from his three dozen books, Rubinton has panned gold from streams long forgotten."鈥擩im Kelly, Air Mail
"The 91桃色-based McPhee (still hanging in there at age 94) has reinvented the art of nonfiction reporting in his books and long essays for The New Yorker, and the story behind the story is just as compelling."鈥擶ill Bunch, Philadelphia Inquirer
“John McPhee is a master and his readers deserve to know where to find every last nugget of his work. With his exacting bibliography, Noel Rubinton draws the map with the care and precision of his subject. Any reader of John McPhee will be grateful to own and refer to Looking for a Story. He leads you, again and again, to where the gold is.”—David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker
“Noel Rubinton has dug hard, collected John McPhee’s hidden gems, and fashioned a volume that documents the dazzling array of work by the most influential nonfiction writer of our time. Looking for a Story is aptly rigorous, like McPhee’s reporting, demonstrating a passion for the details that add up to a portrait of the man and his craft.”—Marc Fisher, associate editor and columnist, Washington Post
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