John McPhee: His Work

 

As Educator

In his role as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University (a post he has held since 1974), McPhee teaches a writing seminar two out of every three years. It’s one of the most popular and competitive writing programs in the country, and his former students include acclaimed writers such as Richard Preston (The Hot Zone), Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), and Jennifer Weiner (Good in Bed).

When he is teaching his seminar, McPhee does no writing at all. His seminar is reportedly focused on craft and tools, to the point where he has been known to pass around the pencils he uses in his own work for students to examine. As such it’s an unusual writing class, a throwback to an era when writing was a profession like any other, with tools, processes, and accepted norms that could earn a respectable if not flashy income. McPhee concentrates on the building of narratives from the raw ingredients of words and facts, not the elegant turning of phrases or other artistic concerns.

McPhee has referred to writing as “masochistic, mind-fracturing self-enslaved labor” and famously keeps a print of sinners being tortured (in the style of Hieronymus Bosch) outside his office at Princeton.

Impact

As an educator and writing teacher, McPhee’s impact and legacy are obvious. It’s estimated that about 50% of the students who have taken his writing seminar have gone on to careers as writers or editors or both. Hundreds of well-known writers owe some of their success to McPhee, and his influence on the current state of nonfiction writing is enormous, as even writers who haven’t been lucky enough to take his seminar are deeply influenced by him.

As a writer, his impact is more subtle but equally profound. McPhee’s work is nonfiction, traditionally a dry, often humorless and impersonal field where accuracy was valued more than any kind of enjoyment. McPhee’s work is factually accurate and educational, but it incorporates his own personality, private life, friends and relationships and—most importantly—a buzzing sort of passion for the subject at hand. McPhee writes about subjects that interest him. Anyone who has ever experienced the sort of curiosity that sets off a reading binge recognizes in McPhee’s prose a kindred spirit, a man who sinks into expertise on a subject out of simple curiosity.

That intimate and creative approach to nonfiction has influenced several generations of writers and transformed nonfiction writing into a genre almost as ripe with creative possibilities as fiction. While McPhee doesn’t invent facts or filter events through a fiction filter, his understanding that structure makes the story has been revolutionary in the nonfiction world.

At the same time, McPhee represents the last remnant of a writing and publishing world that no longer exists. McPhee was able to get a comfortable job at a famous magazine shortly after graduating college and has been able to choose the subjects of his journalism and books, often without any sort of measurable editorial control or budgetary concern. While this is certainly due in part to his skill and value as a writer, it’s also an environment that young writers can no longer expect to encounter in the age of listicles, digital content, and shrinking print budgets.