Lede in Esquire: Pushing the bounds of "nonfiction"?

Not sure if any Esquire editors play around here (maybe Jones can let us know), but I'd love to have them chime in on this issue.

 

Petition the lord with prayer
Petition the lord with prayer
You cannot petition the lord with prayer!

 

Way back when? You've gotta be kidding me. The '60's and '70's are hardly ancient history.

Pretty big balls to dismiss the likes of Mailer, Capote, Joe McGinnis, Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, George Plimpton and Gay Talese.

 

And, yes, Jersey_Guy is correct. A "reasonable person" would reasonably conclude that this is supposed to be journalism, not a fictionalized dramatization. S_F, you keep telling us that Esquire always makes stuff up, but I haven't seen an example yet. And I sure don't remember a four-page thread on the subject.

 

Oh, Christ. I wasn't dismissing anybody. You know that. But because Truman Capote elaborated scenes in "In Cold Blood" doesn't make it OK to do the same thing in 2008 when so much attention has been devoted to the craft of narrative journalism, both by academics and practicioners of the craft.

 

The lede is fiction. It might be based on a true story, but that doesn't quite cut it. The rest is "supposed" to be non-fiction. The reader is "supposed" to be able to differentiate. There are already two supposed's too many. Even if most readers get it. Remember that elementary saying about the word ASS-U-ME. This story can't possibly help the magazine's credibility.

 

My problem with the lede isn't a journalistic one but a stylistic one

As a trained reader I can tell the difference between re-creations and "facts".

Narrative journalism isn't the same as beat reporting.

I'm not sure what the year has to do with anything. Capote's "In Cold Blood" is just as brilliant now as it was when first published.

 

You've never seen the facts of "In Cold Blood" called into question? I don't believe that.

 

Yes, I have. And also that he had over 8,000 pages of notes for the book

It's still one of the greatest pieces of narrative journalism in the last fifty years.

 

Right. But you can't say, "Because Truman Capote made stuff up for 'In Cold Blood,' it's OK for David Vann to do so in Esquire in 2008, because 'In Cold Blood' was a classic and, hey, it isn't really that old. Not when you start to think of how old the earth is, for example."

By the quickly evolving standards and mores of this particular corner of the industry, it IS old. "In Cold Blood" largely got the discussion going. I'm not dismissing Truman Capote as "ancient history." But for the purposes of this debate, 40 years is a lot of time and a lot has happened and a lot has been settled about what is and is not acceptable in narrative journalism.

 

I'm interested in the process. Did they basically give Vann a press packet of facts and tell him to recreate and write?

Or did Vann go to the hotel, and do interviews himself?

How does it work?

 

From the way I understand it, there were 1,500 pages of police documents that were leaked to either Vann or Esquire. Vann then did the interviews, finding the people, I assume, through what was in the 1,500 pages of police documents.