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Literary Studies Journalism Return address: Literary Journalism Studies Literary Journalism Studies Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 2012 State University of New York at Cortland Department of Communication Studies L P.O. Box 2000 J Cortland, New York 13045-0900 S U.S.A. Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 2012 2012 Fall 2, No. 4, Vol. Published at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University 1845 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208, U.S.A. The Journal of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies Baltimore’s fabled marble rowhouse steps, featured here in “Wash Day” (1945) by Baltimore photographer A. Aubrey Bodine. In her article “Love Letters to Baltimore,” Stacy Spaulding argues that newspaper columns featuring such Baltimore icons should be seen as “urban community narrative.” Wash Day” © Jennifer B. Bodine • Courtesy of www.aaubreybodine.com Image ID # 25-011 A. Aubrey Bodine began working for The Baltimore Sun in 1920 and became regarded as one of the finest pictorial photographers of the twentieth century. More than 4,000 im- ages from his fifty-year career are available at www.aaubreybodine.com. Literary Journalism Studies The Journal of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 2012 ––––––––––––––––– Contents Information for Contributors 4 Note from the Editor 5 ––––––––––––––––– Revolution Is Such a Beautiful Word! Literary Journalism in Castro’s Cuba by Juan Orlando Pérez González 9 Myles of Writing: Brian O’Nolan’s Newspaper Columns by Donald McNamara 29 “Love Letters to Baltimore”: Civic Memory, Citizenship, and Urban Community Narrative by Stacy Spaulding 45 Building Bridges between Literary Journalism and Alternative Ethnographic Forms: Opportunities and Challenges by Bruce Gillespie 67 Firing the Canon: The Historical Search for Literary Journalism’s Missing Links by Nancy L. Roberts 81 Kicking the Canon in the Breeches by John Tulloch 95 What Will the Future Bring? by Alice Donat Trindade 101 Book Reviews 107 ––––––––––––––––– Mission Statement 138 International Association for Literary Journalism Studies 139 2 Literary Journalism Studies Copyright © 2012 International Association for Literary Journalism Studies. All rights reserved. Website: www.literaryjournalismstudies.org Literary Journalism Studies is the journal of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies and is published twice yearly. For information on subscribing or membership, go to www.ialjs.org. Published twice a year, Spring and Fall issues. Subscriptions, $50/year (individuals), $75/year (libraries). ISSN 1944-897X (paper) ISSN 1944-8988 (online) 3 Literary Journalism Studies Editor John C. Hartsock State University of New York at Cortland, U.S.A. Associate Editors William Dow Roberta Maguire American University of Paris, France University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, U.S.A. Miles Maguire University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, U.S.A. Book Review Editor Nancy Roberts University at Albany, SUNY, U.S.A. Publisher David Abrahamson Northwestern University, U.S.A. Editorial Offices Literary Journalism Studies State University of New York at Cortland Department of Communication Studies P.O. Box 2000 Cortland, New York 13045–0900 U.S.A. Email: [email protected] Member of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals Published at the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University 1845 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208, U.S.A. 4 SUBMISSION INFORMATION ITERARY JOURNALISM STUDIES invites submission of original scholarly L articles on literary journalism, which is also known as narrative journalism, literary reportage, reportage literature, New Journalism, and the nonfiction novel, as well as literary and narrative nonfiction that emphasizes cultural revelation. The journal has an international focus and seeks submissions on the theory, history, and pedagogy of literary journalism throughout the world. All disciplinary approaches are welcome. Submissions should be informed with an awareness of the existing scholarship and should be between 3,000 and 8,000 words in length, including notes. To encourage international dialogue, the journal is open to publishing on occasion short examples or excerpts of previously published literary journalism accompanied by a scholarly gloss about or an interview with the writer who is not widely known outside his or her country. The example or excerpt must be translated into English. The scholarly gloss or interview should generally be between 1,500 and 2,500 words long and in- dicate why the example is important in the context of its national culture. Together, both the text and the gloss generally should not exceed 8,000 words in length. The contributor is responsible for obtaining all copyright permissions, including from the publisher, author and translator as necessary. The journal is also willing to consider publication of exclusive excerpts of narrative literary journalism accepted for publication by major publishers. Email submission (as a Microsoft Word attachment) is mandatory. A cover page indicating the title of the paper, the author’s name, institutional affiliation, and con- tact information, along with an abstract (50–100 words), should accompany all submissions. The cover page should be sent as a separate attachment from the abstract and submission to facilitate distribution to readers. No identification should appear linking the author to the submission or abstract. All submissions must be in Eng- lish Microsoft Word and follow the Chicago Manual of Style (Humanities endnote style)<http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html>. All submissions will be blind reviewed. Send submissions to the editor at <literaryjournalism- [email protected]>. Copyright reverts to the contributor after publication with the provision that if re- published reference is made to initial publication in Literary Journalism Studies. OOK REVIEWS are invited. They should be 1,000–2,000 words and focus on Bthe scholarship of literary journalism and recent original works of literary journalism that deserve greater recognition among scholars. Book reviews are not blind reviewed but selected by the book review editor based on merit. Reviewers may sug- gest book review prospects or write the book review editor for suggestions. Usually reviewers will be responsible for obtaining their respective books. Book reviews and/ or related queries should be sent to Nancy L. Roberts at <[email protected]> 5 Note from the Editor… Narrative Literary Journalism’s Resistance to the Big Idea hat I continue to find fascinating about a narrative literary Wjournalism is its capacity, a capacity I believe is inherent, to resist coming to closure,1 and specifically the kind of ideological closure that subscribes to the big idea. This is what I detected in Juan Pérez González’s thoughtful, probing account in this issue of examples of a narrative literary journalism from Castro’s Cuba in the 1980s. Moreover, I see this as part of a continuing pattern in countries long subject to authoritarian rule. It is not difficult to detect the source of the resistance, al- though it is easy to overlook it because of its ubiquity. We detect it, for example, in that iconic video of the lone protester standing in front of an army tank in Tianan- men Square in 1989, as media sociologists have noted.2 To the West, it represented heroic defiance by the individual. To the official Chinese media it represented, ac- cording to the spin they put on it, the humane restraint of the People’s Liberation Army in not running the protester down. What is key here is “spin.” Because beyond the socially constructed spin—official, scholarly, or otherwise—lies the individual “spin,” as reader-response theory tells us, in which there always exists the possibil- ity of a reader’s individual and distinctive interpretation of, as well as resistance to, prevailing social constructions: Imagine the tank driver thinking, I don’t want to run over this guy. Maybe there’s a little truth to both positions, and the result is a kind of ethical complexity more suited to being explored in a literary journalism. When I was younger and traveling through Prague during the communist period, I couldn’t help but notice on the famous Charles Bridge over the Moldau the statues of saints Barbara, Margaret, and Elizabeth. What left an impression on me was that despite their being begrimed in black in that badly soot-polluted city, and despite the fact that this was an officially atheistic country, the city made it a point of carefully cleaning and painting the saints’ carved inscriptions in gold leaf. One wonders if it was possibly a subtle form of resistance to the political big idea. Because why, in the end, would the communists want to care for such statues that represented a resistance to their idea? And in a failed society, what were the dangers posed by such statues committed to the religious life? What individual interpretations, amid food and energy shortages as the Soviet-dominated empire declined, could be drawn from and attached to these vestiges of an earlier era that the Czechs memorialized by painting the chiseled identities in gold leaf? After the religious experience had been Literary Journalism Studies Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 2012 6 Literary Journalism Studies banished to the ideological wilderness during the communist period, could the Un- derground Man or Woman, as a protest against an existential banality imposed by the State in the name of the big idea, begin to wonder what the State found so threaten- ing? And personally take up the threat as an act of protest, and, more importantly, self-efficacy? One can turn to religion for many reasons, the bad and the good. In a sense, the evidence of the world around them is what a few literary journal- ists—those committed to a journalism as storytelling—turned to in Castro’s Cuba in the 1980s, at least as I see it. Because they detected in the details that not all was well in the workers’ and peasants’ paradise as prescribed by the big idea smoking a Cohiba.

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