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William Finnegan, Cold New World (1998) A four-part journey through the lives of four American families stricken by poverty at a time when the rest of America prospers. Finnegan focuses his story on the worlds of the adolescents, worlds that are burdened by drug-taking and dealing, gangs and crime. Most critics chose to site that Finnegan, who set out determined to write about class, was not able to escape race. (Two of the families are African American, one Mexican, and one white.) Finnegan is a writer for The New Yorker and author of five other books, among them, Long Walk to Freedom, a biography of Nelson Mandela (1995). One of the most valuable lessons of Cold New World is Finnegan's reporting method. On the third page of his introduction he bluntly states that his reporting method has been anything but scientific. And it is this that makes his book work. He inserts himself into the lives of the people he finds, even drives a group of kids to a rave party in his rental car, to the point that his subjects seem to forget that he is a journalist. His four accounts read more like a novel than a piece of journalism, keeping the readers interest better than a sociological study on class and race normally would. Robert Christgau of the Village Voice wrote Finnegan writes like a dream. His prose is unfailingly lucid, graceful, and specific, his characterization effortless, and the pull of his narrative pure seduction—he knows just when to move from summary to incident or analysis and back again, and if he's a bulldog when he smells a turning point, he's a pussycat tracing the stray ends of a silly yarn. |
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