Remnick! Call me!

September 18, 2007

Filed in: The Way We Live Now

Did you have a chance to read Jerome Groopman’s long and insightful article on colic in last week’s New Yorker?

I liked it.

What I really liked was the structure of the piece. First he introduced us a new mom with colicky twins, then he discussed the difficulties of trying to diagnose and define colic, followed by general historical information. Back to the present, where he delves into what people are trying now, before taking us to the Colic Clinic, where he describes Dr. Barry Lester’s office with its whacky colic cures, followed by salient and moving quotes from Lester. Cut to a scene at the clinic—mother, baby, writer and Dr. Pamela High in a room, getting diagnosed. Return to Lester talking about what causes colic, add info from other researchers, then wrap up with the mother from the lead, who survived her children’s colic but leaves us with some searing, moving quotes on the subject.

I liked this so much because it’s the exact. same. structure. that I used to cover the exact. same. topic. including the exact. same. clinic where the doctors gave me the exact. same. quotes exactly a year ago for Child magazine (here’s the link, but warning, it’s a pdf).

I am not in any way, shape, or form casting aspersion of any kind on Dr. Groopman. I’m only saying, there’s a certain way one structures a story like this for a glossy mainstream magazine out of New York, and this is it. Given the topic and that structural constraint, well, yeah, the two stories are going to be parallel.

What I am saying that I’ve never heard said before is this: If Jerome Groopman writes that way, and he’s published in the New Yorker, and I write that way. . . well, then, shouldn’t I too be publishing in the New Yorker?

Am I right?

Anybody?

Hello?

[crickets]