Reporting at Wit's End
Tales from The New Yorker
By St. Clair McKelway
March 2010
$18.00
640 pp
5.5 x 8.25 in
Paperback
By St. Clair McKelway
The best of St. Clair McKelway, a long-time New Yorker writer, whose astonishing career and work have been overlooked for too long--with an introduction by Adam Gopnik
"Why does A. J. Liebling remain a vibrant role model for writers while the superb, prolific St. Clair McKelway has been sorely forgotten?" James Wolcott asked this question in a recent review of the Complete New Yorker on DVD. Anyone who has read a single paragraph of McKelway's work would struggle to provide an answer.
His articles for the New Yorker were defined by their clean language and incomporable wit, by his love of New York's rough edges and his affection for the working man (whether that work was come by honestly or not). Like Joseph Mitchell and A. J. Liebling, McKelway combined the unflagging curiosity of a great reporter with the narrative flair of a master storyteller. William Shawn, the magazine's long-time editor, described him as a writer with the "lightest of light touches." His style is so striking, Shawn went on to say, that "it was too odd to be imitated."
The pieces collected here are drawn from two of McKelway's books--True Tales from the Annals of Crime and Rascality (1951) and The Big Little Man from Brooklyn (1969). His subjects are the small players who in their particulars defined life in New York during the 36 years McKelway wrote: the junkmen, boxing cornermen, counterfeiters, con artists, fire marshals, priests, and beat cops and detectives. The "rascals."
An amazing portrait of a long forgotten New York by the reporter who helped establish and utterly defined New Yorker "fact writing," Untitled Collection is long overdue celebration of a truly gifted writer.
Reviews for Reporting at Wit's End:
New Yorker writer and Lost City of Z author, David Grann, picked Reporting At Wit’s End as his favorite book of 2010 for Salon
"Reporting at Wit's End," a collection of stories by St. Clair McKelway, was my favorite book in 2010, since it provided me with one of the great thrills of reading: the discovery of an extraordinary writer. Except in this case, the author of these beguiling true stories -- about counterfeiters and fire-bug catchers and inside dopesters and con men and embezzlers -- is not a new writer at all but someone who has simply been eclipsed by history, which only added to my delight in discovering him, as if I were being let in on a great secret. The eighteen stories in this collection, which were first published in the New Yorker, and span from the 1930s to the 1960s, are all pieces that transcend time. And, if there is any justice, their republication should earn McKelway, at long last, a place alongside Joseph Mitchell, Gay Talese, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe as one of the masters of literary nonfiction.”—Salon
TING AT WIT'S END assembles 18 of McKelway's longer pieces from the 1930s to the 1960s, and every one of them is a treasure. [A] tremendous collection, which, if there's any justice, will begin the process of winning him back the fame he long ago earned." This is from a wonderful backpage essay on McKelway in the 3/7 New York Book Review."This exactness of observation and fascination with detail runs through McKelway's essays.... All these stories are lucid."—Economist
New Yorker Abstract of Roger Angell's terrific piece on St. Clair McKelway. "A generous new anthology with eighteen of [McKelway's] articles from the magazine and an introduction by Adam Gopnik, puts his work within reach once again, and high time."—Roger Angell
"When he was on his game, McKelway might have been the best nonfiction writer the magazine had -- this at a time when Liebling, Mitchell and E.J. Kahn Jr. were also producing signature work. But if McKelway remains perhaps the greatest magazine writer that no one knows about, the publication of a new collection, "Reporting at Wit's End: Tales From the New Yorker" (Bloomsbury: 620 pp., $18 paper), brings with it the hope that his long-forgotten byline might be brought back to light."—Los Angeles Times Read full review.
"Reporting at Wit’s End is a thick, recently issued collection of stories by St. Clair McKelway, for years associated with The New Yorker, writing from the 1930s, ’40s, World War II, and beyond. Mainly it’s a book of characters, espionage, and insights into the world before complications set in. The title may be misleading. We would have called it “Brilliant Reporting.”—Christian Science Monitor. Read full review.
“The best essays and articles from a longtime New Yorker writer too long relegated to the shadows cast by A. J. Liebling and Joseph Mitchell, distinguished by vintage portraits of a long-gone NYC"#*8212; Barnes and Noble Review’s Long List
"A lovely, funny, sad collection of [McKelway's] work. Throughout 'Reporting at Wit's End,' his voice is slyly funny, subtly learned, and as slickly styled as his dark blond hair. Locating sense in nonsense may have been McKelway's greatest gift: out of oddness, he crafted a most unusual art."—Columbia Journalism Review Read full review.
“This generous collection of his work for the magazine spanning four decades should, by any rights, restore this supremely gifted, prolific, droll and idiosyncratic writer to his deserved place in the pantheon. "Reporting at Wit's End" represents the range of McKelway's talents and preoccupations from the 1930s to the 1960s.”— San Francisco Chronicle Read full review.
“McKelway’s writing is deliciously detailed, subtle and wry, full of keen observations and connections. Readers who are fans of the New Yorker or great storytelling in general will appreciate this book.” —Booklist
“A rogue’s gallery of shady, quirky, beguiling figures populates this scintillating collection of essays by one of the New Yorker’s seldom-sung masters. His limpid style and wry humor make these pieces as fresh and engaging as the day they appeared.” —Publishers Weekly
