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62 MAY | JUNE 2015 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTEGAZETTE iven its dramatic twists and turns, what’s most surprising about the fact that Michael Finkel W’90’s life has been Gturned into the new film True Story— produced by Brad Pitt and starring Jonah scheduled for general release in late April Hill and James Franco—may be that it’s (after the Gazette went to press). Early taken 10 years since he wrote the book reviews have been mixed, with some crit- version [“Arts,” Jul|Aug 2005] to make it ics praising the thoughtful treatment of to the big screen. the material, and others saying the direc- To put things into context, back then tor didn’t quite pull it off. two-time Academy Award nominee Hill, “If this all sounds like red meat for phi- who plays him in the movie, was just get- losophers and ethicists at the movies, it ting noticed as “eBay customer” in The certainly is. It doesn’t, unfortunately, 40-Year-Old Virgin; Franco was between make for crackling cinema,” wrote Jordan stints as Harry Osborn, the bad guy/best Hoffman in the Guardian. But Variety’s friend in the Tobey Maguire Spiderman; Peter Debruge wrote, “In [director Rupert] and Brangelina was just becoming a thing. Goold’s hands, the two thesps [Hill and The story of True Story starts with a James Franco, as Longo] deliver measured, bizarre coincidence: Finkel, a star jour- soul-searching work. Both Finkel and Longo nalist with a clutch of New York Times found in one another a much-needed con- Magazine cover stories to his credit, is fessor, as well as a potential redeemer.” getting dismissed from the Times over fabrications in one of them—effectively Finkel says he “never in a million years” destroying his identity as a writer. expected his life and career to end up on Within days of his firing, he learns that the silver screen. a man named Christian Longo, wanted Before they did, he was a scrawny Jew- for the murders of his wife and three ish kid from Stamford, Connecticut, who children in Oregon, had been calling was on the varsity track team at his himself “Michael Finkel of The New York high school. He ran in the Penn Relays Times” while on the run in Mexico. and took a shine to Franklin Field, By then Longo has been captured and which helped him decide to apply to sent back to the US. Finkel writes letters Penn. He also had a head for business— to the killer in prison, and manages to he netted more than $20,000 in profits strike up a relationship, and embarks on dealing in baseball cards—and chose a memoir as a way to revive his writing Wharton as his school at the Univer- career. The film explores the implications sity, majoring in finance. of their connection, as well as Finkel’s Neither choice stuck, though. Finkel romance with the woman who would quit Penn’s track team after two years, become his wife—and her concerns about and by the time he graduated, he “didn’t Finkel’s interactions with the killer. want to do a single minute more of The film premiered at the Sundance finance,” he says. “I think I learned what Film Festival in Utah in February and was I didn’t like in college.” ILLUSTRATION BY MARTHA RICH THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE MAY | JUNE 2015 63 Finkel had written for his high-school He also published a long story in the US worker. Finkel survived, but later newspaper, and midway through his Penn Sunday Times Travel section about a described the experience as “horrible” in career, he joined The Daily Pennsylvanian. cross-country biking trip he took with the Gazette article about the magazine. He covered sports, with a prediliction for Bret Parker C’90, a friend and fellow DPer In a story for the Times, he squeezed into long-form stories—“I thought I could learn who is now the executive director of the a tightly cramped boat of Haitian refugees more about the human experience through New York City Bar Association. Within a bound for the US. Passengers were sick soft features than hard news,” he says—and year, Finkel was offered a low-level edito- from dehydration by the second day, but also wrote for 34th Street. rial staff job at Sports Illustrated, but luckily a Coast Guard ship caught them (Coincidentally, his editor there was Larry turned it down. “I’m not a good editor. I heading toward a shallow reef. Finkel’s story Smith ASC’91, who—besides creating the want[ed] to write,” he says. about the experience was well received, and “Six Word-Memoirs” publishing phenom- After 20 months in Manhattan, he moved the Times made him a contract writer. On enon—is the real-life model for the character to Montana. He had fallen “in absolute assignment in the Gaza Strip, he ducked Larry Bloom in the Netflix series Orange love” with the region when he and Parker into the trenches to avoid gunfire. After is the New Black, which is based on the rode through southwestern Montana on September 11, he was sent to cover the US memoir by Piper Kerman, Smith’s wife.) their bike trip, he says, and he was also invasion of Afghanistan for two months. Finkel was also a DP columnist, pour- inspired by John Steinbeck’s descriptions “I have a certain style of adventure that ing out his bleeding-heart liberal views of the state’s natural beauty in Travels with appeals to me,” he says. “The riskiest on topics ranging from Philly’s homeless Charlie. “When I stand among the moun- thing I do is drive a car, statistically. to inherent racism in the yearbook, and tains,” he explains, “I feel at home.” People thought of [my job] as risky. I a co-founder of the Wharton Democrats. Though he’d resigned his staff job at thought of it as interesting. Part of me What set Finkel decisively on the path Skiing, he continued to write features for enjoys when there’s a bit of danger. It to a professional writing career, he says, the magazine that took him to places like focuses me. I feel very much alive.” was taking the nonfiction course taught Iceland, Iran, and China, and one on ski- Finkel was thriving, writing for by the legendary Nora Magid [“The Nora ing Mount Kilimanjaro. He also had a National Geographic Adventure and Network,” Mar|Apr 2013] in his senior year. column, “Alpine Circus,” for which he did Sports Illustrated as well as the Times. Magid famously encouraged her charges “odd stunts” like skiing down a runway Then, one day, he made a bad choice. to aim for publication, to send out their truck ramp or on a volcano in Mexico, and work to magazines and newspapers. visited offbeat locations like the “smallest only happened once. For a story Finkel submitted a story—about his ski areas in the United States.” about the child slavery trade on reluctance, as a skinny kid in high school, And he proved adept at pitching short It cocoa plantations in West Africa, to change for gym, and how his love of travel-pieces to the Times—writing about he interviewed several boys but didn’t literature distracted him from his own, topics ranging from his love of getting find the evidence he was looking for that er, shortcomings—to the Times’ “About a haircut in foreign countries, to the fact they had been physically abused. Under Men” column, addressing his cover letter that he brought his Frisbee and played pressure to deliver a certain sort of tale, to the (male) editor, Leslie Gelb, “Dear with strangers everywhere he traveled. he combined several boys’ stories into a Mrs. Gelb.” The faux pas didn’t hurt: “Wet Still, however rich in experience, those composite character. After a relief agen- Behind the Ears” ran in The New York were “lean times” financially for Finkel. cy complained and Finkel was forced to Times Magazine and was Finkel’s first The Times pieces, for example, only brought admit one of his factual errors, the Times big literary paycheck. “Mike got a thou- in a few hundred dollars each. “It didn’t sniffed out the rest of the lies in the story sand dollars from the Times, and an A matter if I was only eating peanut butter and fired him in early 2002, publishing from me,” Magid told a subsequent class. and jelly,” he says. “I must like it. I must a terse note about his dismissal. After graduation, Finkel moved back to love it, actually. I’ve always been extraor- The Times looked carefully and found Connecticut, waited tables, penned sto- dinarily interested in a lot of things. I’ve no similar problems in Finkel’s other ries for the Stamford Advocate at $15 a been careful not to have a specialty.” stories, which sets him apart from noto- pop, and sent resumes all over Manhattan. His author’s bio after a 1998 travel rious serial fabricators like fellow DP An avid skier, he landed an associate edi- essay read, “Michael Finkel writes fre- alum Stephen Glass C’94 [“Through a tor slot at Skiing magazine for $18,000 quently about travel and unusual sports.” Glass Darkly,” Nov|Dec 1998] and fellow a year. He moved into a $1,500-a-month However, he soon began carving out a Times writer Jayson Blair. Nevertheless, apartment in New York with former DP niche with stories that put him into dan- his career was ruined.

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