John McPhee - The John McPhee Reader

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Table of Contents

Irons in the Fire
The Ransom of Russian Art
Assembling California
Looking for a Ship
The Control of Nature
Rising from the Plains
Table of Contents
La Place de la Concorde Suisse
In Suspect Terrain
Basin and Range
Giving Good Weight
Coming into the Country
The Survival of the Bark Canoe
Pieces of the Frame
The Curve of Binding Energy
The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed
Encounters with the Archdruid
The Crofter and the Laird
Levels of the Game
A Roomful of Hovings
The Pine Barrens
Oranges
The Headmaster
A Sense of Where You Are

The John McPhee Reader
The Second John McPhee Reader

JOHN McPHEE is a staff writer for The New Yorker . He lives and works in Princeton, New Jersey. He has written twelve previous books published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

WILLIAM L. HOWARTH teaches English at Princeton University. He is editor in chief of The Writings of Henry D. Thoreau , published by Princeton University Press.

(1960-1976)

BOOKS (all New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

A Sense of Where You Are (1965)
The Headmaster (1966)
Oranges (1967)
The Pine Barrens (1968)
A Roomful of Hovings and Other Profiles (1968; has items
marked*)
Levels of the Game (1969)
The Crofter and the Laird (1970)
Encounters with the Archdruid (1971)
The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed (1973)
The Curve of Binding Energy (1974)
Pieces of the Frame (1975; has items marked )
The Survival of the Bark Canoe (1975)

THE NEW YORKER

Basketball and Beefeaters (March 16, 1963), 186-94

A Sense of Where You Are (January 23, 1965), 4091

*Fifty-Two People on a Continent (March 5, 1966), 101-50

The Headmaster (March 19, 1966), 57159

Oranges (May 7, 1966), 142-181; (May 14, 1966), 144-99

*A Roomful of Hovings (May 20, 1967), 47137

The Pine Barrens (November 25, 1967), 67147; (December 2, 1967), 66144

*Templex (January 6, 1968), 3267

*A Forager (April 6, 1968), 45104

*The Lawns of Wimbledon (June 22, 1968), 32-57

Levels of the Game (June 7, 1969), 45-111; (June 14, 1969), 44-81

The Island of the Crofter and the Laird (December 6, 1969), 69-105; (December 13, 1969), 61112

Reading the River (March 21, 1970), 126-133

From Birnam Wood to Dunsinane (October 10, 1970), 1417

Encounters with the Archdruid (March 20, 1971), 42-91; (March 27, 1971), 4280; (April 3, 1971), 4193

Ranger (September 11, 1971), 45-89

The Search for Marvin Gardens (September 9, 1972), 4562

The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed (February 10, 1973), 40-73; (February 17, 1973), 4277; (February 24, 1973), 4879

Travels in Georgia (April 28, 1973), 44-104

The Curve of Binding Energy (December 3, 1973), 54-145; (December 10, 1973), 50108; (December 17, 1973), 6091

Firewood (March 25, 1974), 81105

Ruidoso (April 29, 1974), 83-114

The Survival of the Bark Canoe (February 24, 1975), 49-94; (March 3, 1975), 4169

The Atlantic Generating Station (May 12, 1975), 51-100

The Pinball Philosophy (June 30, 1975), 813

The Keel of Lake Dickey (May 3, 1976), 4373

What They Were Hunting For (September 27, 1976), 80122; (October 4, 1976), 4073

THE TALK OF THE TOWN, THE NEW YORKER

Big Plane (February 19, 1966), 289

Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving (March 5, 1966), 357

Coliseum Hour (March 12, 1966), 44-5

Beauty and Horror (May 28, 1966), 28-31

Girl in a Paper Dress (June 25, 1966), 20-1

Ms and FeMs at the Biltmore (July 2, 1966), 1718

On the Way to Gladstone (July 9, 1966), 18

The License Plates of Burning Tree (January 30, 1971 ), 202

Americans (December 25, 1971), 257

The Conching Rooms (May 13, 1972), 323

Sullen Gold (March 25, 1974), 323

Flavors & Fragrances (April 8, 1974), 356

Police Story (July 15, 1974), 27

The P1800 (February 10, 1975), 302

ARTICLES IN OTHER MAGAZINES (selected)

Time cover stories on Mort Sahl (August 15, 1960); Jean Kerr (April 14, 1961); Jackie Gleason (December 29, 1961); Sophia Loren (April 6, 1962); Joan Baez (November 23, 1962); Richard Burton (April 26, 1963); Barbra Streisand(April 10, 1964); the New York Worlds Fair (June 5, 1964)

Josies Well, Holiday (January, 1970), 66+

Pieces of the Frame, The Atlantic (January, 1970), 427

Centre Court, Playboy (June, 1971), 102+

Tennis, The New York Times Book Review (June 10, 1973), 1+

The People of New Jerseys Pine Barrens, National Geographic Vol. 145 (January, 1974), 52-77. Pictures by W. R. Curtsinger

FICTION

The Fair of San Gennaro, The TransAtlantic Review , No. 8 (Winter, 1961), 117-28

Eucalyptus Trees, The Reporter (October 19, 1967), 36+

Ruth, the Sun Is Shining, Playboy (April 1968), 114+

Selections from

A Sense of Where You Are: A Profile of William Bradley (1965)

The Headmaster: Frank L. Boyden, of Deerfield (1966)

Oranges (1967)

The Pine Barrens (1968)

A Roomful of Hovings and Other Profiles (1968)

Levels of the Game (1969)

The Crofter and the Laird (1970)

Encounters with the Archdruid (Narratives about a Conservationist and Three of His Natural Enemies) (1971)

The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed (1973)

The Curve of Binding Energy (1974)

Pieces of the Frame (1975)

The Survival of the Bark Canoe (1975)

McPhees powers of descriptions are such that we often feel the shock of recognition even when what is being described is totally outside of our experience He penetratres the surfaces of things and makes his way toward what is essential and unchanging.

Richard Horwich, The New Republic

What makes a piece of John McPhees reportage so reliably superior like a bamboo flyrod or a well-centered postage stamp? It is easy to identify the ingredients. Most obviously, he finds interesting things to write about Then there is his facility for dreaming up odd and out-of-the-way approaches to his sugjects Add to this his knack for illustrating with amusing anecdotes And there you have an approximate John McPhee recipe, lacking only the dramatic confrontations, the interesting characters and the unusual vantage points, which I neglected to mention.

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

McPhee first saw Bill Bradley on a basketball court in 1962, the winter of Bradleys freshman year at Princeton. McPhee knew a thing or two about basketball, having served on Princetons freshman team himself, but watching Bradley play was a revelation: Every motion developed in its simplest form. Every motion repeated itself precisely when he used it again. He was remarkably fast, but he ran easily. His passes were so good they were difficult to follow. Every so often, and not often enough, I thought, he stopped and went high into the air with the ball and a long jump shot would go into the net.

The same estimate can apply to McPhees story of Bradley, which developed two years later in a simple form, first as a long Profile for The New Yorker , then as a book-length narrative for Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This sequence, repeated with seeming precision and ease ever since, established the hallmarks of McPhees brand of writing: exact details, shrewd observation, gifted phrasing, an orderly format. Less innovative than his later works, A Sense of Where You Are still has passes so good they are difficult to follow, and long jump shots that loft high in the air on their way to the net. The following extract is from McPhees original Profile. Other chapters in the book version record the triumphs of Bradleys senior year, when he became an Ivy League champion, N.C.A.A. semifinalist, Rhodes Scholar, and a lasting friend of his profiler. WLH

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