John Angus McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is an American writer. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourth occasion in 1999 for Annals of the Former World (a collection of five books, including two of his previous Pulitzer finalists).[1] In 2008, he received the George Polk Career Award for his "indelible mark on American journalism during his nearly half-century career".[2] Since 1974, McPhee has been the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.[3]
While at Princeton, McPhee went to New York once or twice a week to appear as the juvenile panelist on the radio and television quiz program Twenty Questions.[8] One of his roommates at Princeton was 1951 Heisman Trophy winner Dick Kazmaier.[9]
McPhee's writing career began at Time magazine, and led to a long association with the weekly magazine The New Yorker from 1963[12] to the present. Many of his thirty-one books include material originally written for The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965.[13]
Unlike Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson, who helped kick-start the "new journalism" of the 1960s, McPhee produced a gentler, more literary style of writing that more thoroughly incorporated techniques from fiction. McPhee avoided the streams of consciousness styles of Wolfe and Thompson, but used detailed description of characters and vivid language to make his writing lively and personal, even when it focused on obscure or difficult topics. He is highly regarded by fellow writers for the quality, quantity, and diversity of his literary output.[14][15]
Reflecting his personal interests, McPhee's subjects are highly eclectic. He has written pieces on lifting-body development (The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed), the psyche and experience of a nuclear engineer (The Curve of Binding Energy), a New Jersey wilderness area (The Pine Barrens), the United States Merchant Marine (Looking for a Ship), farmers' markets (Giving Good Weight), the movement of coal across America ("Coal Train" in Uncommon Carriers), the shifting flow of the Mississippi River ("Atchafalaya" in The Control of Nature), geology (in several books), as well as a short book entirely on the subject of oranges. One of his most widely read books, Coming into the Country, is about the three faces of Alaska: the urban, the rural, and the Alaskan wilderness.
McPhee has been a nonfiction writing instructor at Princeton University since 1974, having taught generations of aspiring undergraduate writers as the Ferris Professor of Journalism.[3][16] Many of McPhee's students have achieved their own distinction for writing:[11]
Wallace Stegner Award (2011) for "sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the West through literature, art, history, lore, or an understanding of the West".
The history and significance of the farming of oranges, how farmers have struggled with frost and how horticulturists have introduced new breeds of citrus.
Discussions in three wildernesses - on a coastal island, in a western mountain range, and on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon - with "Archdruid" David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth.
Contains two essays – "Hoad on Court 5" (originally published in 1971 as "Centre Court" and collected in Pieces of the Frame) and "Twynam of Wimbledon" (originally published in 1968 and collected in A Roomful of Hovings) – and photographs by Alfred Eisenstaedt.
First in his 'Annals of the Former World' series of books on geology and geologists. Republished in Annals of the Former World. Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.[1]
Second book in his 'Annals of the Former World' series on geology and geologists, from the outwash plains of Brooklyn to the Appalachian landscape. Republished in Annals of the Former World.
Annals of the Former World. Two Volumes. Basin and Range, In Suspect Terrain
1983
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Limited to 450 numbered copies signed by McPhee on the limitation page of each volume. Full cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Issued without dustjackets. Illustrated slipcase.
Third book in his 'Annals of the Former World' series on geology and geologists, covering the Rockies and surrounding areas. Republished in Annals of the Former World. Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.[1]
Writings on geology and ecology from Rising from the Plains, Basin and Range, and Encounters with the Archdruid. Photographs by Tom Till. Edited by Christopher Merrill.
Three stories: the US Army Corps of Engineers' efforts to control the waters of the Mississippi near New Orleans; townspeople in Iceland cooling flowing lava to prevent it from flowing into their town; and residents of Los Angeles attempting to control debris flows that roar down mountain canyons.
Fourth book in his 'Annals of the Former World' series on geology and geologists. Surveys throughout California and elsewhere, describing the geologic history of the land. Republished in Annals of the Former World.
The story of how an American professor of Soviet economics managed to remove thousands of works of art in the 1960s and 1970s from the Soviet Union to the US.
Collection of essays. The title essay describes a trip to Nevada where, accompanying a brand inspector, the author discovers that cattle rustling is still practiced.
↑ While being interviewed on the August 27, 2009, edition of Radio West (KUER, Salt Lake City, Utah), writer Christopher Cokinos said that he has a sign above his desk which says Too tired to write? John McPhee isn't.
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References
Weltzein, O. Alan and Susan N. Maher (2003). Coming into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Criticism. ISBN978-0-87480-746-2.
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