John McPhee
John Angus McPhee is a prominent American essayist and biographer known for his keen observations and diverse subject matter. Born in Princeton, New Jersey, he graduated from Princeton University in 1953 and began his writing career at Time magazine before becoming a notable contributor to The New Yorker in 1965. McPhee's work spans a wide array of topics, including sports, education, geology, and the natural world, showcasing his ability to capture the complexities of both people and environments.
His early books, such as *A Sense of Where You Are* and *Levels of the Game*, focus on individual narratives and sports, while later works like *Coming into the Country* and *Annals of the Former World* delve into the geology of the United States, combining scientific inquiry with personal storytelling. McPhee's meticulous research and immersive writing style offer readers a nuanced understanding of his subjects, whether they be ordinary individuals or intricate geological processes. His contributions to literature have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. Throughout his career, McPhee has maintained a commitment to clarity and precision in his writing, making complex topics accessible to a general audience.
Subject Terms
John McPhee
Journalist
- Born: March 8, 1931
- Place of Birth: Princeton, New Jersey
AMERICAN ESSAYIST, BIOGRAPHER, AND SPORTSWRITER
Biography
John Angus McPhee is among the twentieth century’s most acute observers of the natural world, but he cannot be classified as a “nature writer.” His range is wide, from biographies and portraits of athletes, leaders of conservation movements, and educators to books about geology, physics, new inventions, and ordinary people doing ordinary jobs. Born and reared in Princeton, New Jersey, he gravitated toward the university there and graduated in 1953. By 1957, he was a staff writer for Time. In 1965, he became a staff member and a regular contributor to nonfiction for the New Yorker, where much of his work first appeared. He has taught writing at Princeton University since 1974.
John Mcphee. John McPhee. Office of Communications, Princeton University, via Wikimedia Commons
McPhee’s early books centered on sports, education, and New Jersey. A Sense of Where You Are (1965), the piece that established him as a contributor to the New Yorker, is about the Princeton career of basketball star Bill Bradley, who later became a United States senator; Levels of the Game (1969) looks closely at a single tennis match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner. The Headmaster (1966) is a portrait of the famous principal of Deerfield Academy, Frank Boyden, who ran the school in an idiosyncratic fashion for sixty-eight years. The Pine Barrens (1967) looks at the history and people of an isolated backwater in New Jersey that is physically close but spiritually and economically distant from the urban world of the northeastern corridor.
These books convey a sense of the breadth of McPhee’s interests and the diversity of his subjects. They share very little except McPhee’s interest in and skill at conveying unusual people and settings, as well as his skill at precise and detailed description. He is a conscientious researcher, spending time observing his subjects and listening to anyone about whom he intends to write and anyone else who knows about his subject. He returns repeatedly, if necessary, to ensure he has all the necessary information.
His classic study of Alaska, Coming into the Country (1976), for example, is based on months spent in the largest of the states, especially in the remote community of Eagle and in hazardous trips through the remote regions of the interior. The book combines acute observations of the natural world and its wildlife, the humans who have chosen to live in a hostile environment, and the social and economic forces that will determine its future. At the same time, Coming into the Country, like McPhee’s other books, provides the reader with insights into the mind and spirit of the writer. McPhee is an objective observer, but he is not detached from his subjects; he does not hide behind his own objectivity.
In the 1980s, McPhee began to write on the geology of the United States. The books about geology deal with different sections of the United States, roughly following the line of Interstate Highway 80 as it crosses the country from New Jersey to the West. In each of the books, McPhee includes oblique portraits of the people who instruct him in the geology of particular areas, gives insights into the social and economic forces at work in those areas, and describes geological formations and processes in terms available to the general reader.
McPhee, like the geologists who teach him, is interested in mountains and unusual geologic formations; the flatlands of Ohio and the prairies of the Middle West are geologically of little interest. Basin and Range (1981) studies the geology of the Great Basin of the West, the desert areas of Nevada and Utah surrounded by mountains. It is an area of abandoned gold mines and few people, and McPhee finds those people as fascinating as the history of the land they inhabit. In Suspect Terrain (1983) finds him crossing the eastern part of the United States along Interstate 80. He is in the company of a geologist who frequently stops at highway builders' cuts to inspect aspects of the terrain revealed by the dynamite and bulldozers. McPhee uses the geologist’s somewhat prickly character to convey geology's fascination and make the sometimes difficult material more accessible to the reader. Rising from the Plains (1986) incorporates the story of a woman who went to Wyoming in the nineteenth century to teach school and later became the mother of the geologist who instructs McPhee in the ways of the Rocky Mountains. In the fourth volume of this series, Assembling California (1993), McPhee again seeks expert help to understand plate tectonics. Not surprisingly, McPhee explains this complex theory in terms almost anyone can comprehend. In 1998, the four books were republished as a single volume, Annals of the Former World, for which McPhee won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize.
In The Control of Nature (1989), McPhee demonstrates his continuing interest in the environment by presenting dramatic accounts of three attempts by human beings to thwart nature. However, McPhee’s curiosity seems limitless. Looking for a Ship (published in the New Yorker in 1990 in three parts) is about working on a freighter, and The Ransom of Russian Art (1994) is an exciting story about a virtuous smuggler who saw to it that artworks by Russian dissidents found their way to freedom. The Founding Fish (2002) studies the shad and the people who fish it. Uncommon Carriers (2006) is a collection of sketches of those who work in freight transportation. McPhee’s 2010 essay collection Silk Parachute covers various topics, including panic, golf, lacrosse, his grandson and other family members, and the New Yorker’s fact-checking process. In 2011, McPhee compiled The Princeton Reader: Contemporary Essays by Writers and Journalists at Princeton University. His writing continued with Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process (2017), essays that explained his strategies in writing long-form non-fiction, The Patch (2018), McPhee’s seventh collection of essays, and Tabula Rasa (2023), a memoir of writings the author planned to execute but for which he did not have the time.
McPhee’s range and interests have broadened as he has developed as a writer. Always an accurate and precise observer, he has covered broader subjects as he has become more assured in his craft. The focus of some of his earlier books has widened to include historical and social forces, while he has never lost interest in the individual. McPhee is a deceptively brilliant stylist: always clear, never condescending, evocative, and sometimes moving in his descriptions.
Bibliography
Adams, David. “'New Yorker' Writer John McPhee Finds His Unending Project.” Publishers Weekly, 5 May 2023, www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/92196-new-yorker-writer-john-mcphee-finds-his-unending-project.html. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Chapman, David W. “Form and Meaning: Writing the Counterpoint Essay.” Journal of Advanced Composition, vol. 11, 1991.
Clark, Joanne K. “The Writings of John Angus McPhee: A Selected Bibliography.” Bulletin of Bibliography, vol. 38, 1981.
Espey, David. “The Wilds of New Jersey: John McPhee as Travel Writer.” Temperamental Journeys: Essays on the Modern Literature of Travel, Edited by Michael Kowalewski. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1992.
Hessler, Peter. “John McPhee, The Art of Nonfiction No. 3.” The Paris Review, 2010, www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5997/the-art-of-nonfiction-no-3-john-mcphee. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Lounsberry, Barbara. The Art of Fact: Contemporary Artists of Nonfiction. New York: Greenwood, 1990.
Pearson, Michael. John McPhee. 1997. N.p.: Dzanc, 2014.
Roundy, Jack. “Crafting Fact: Formal Devices in the Prose of John McPhee.” Literary Nonfiction: Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy. Edited by Chris Anderson. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1989.
Royte, Elizabeth. “At Close Range.” The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2010, www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/books/review/Royte-t.html. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Stull, James N. Literary Selves: Autobiography and Contemporary American Nonfiction. Westport: Greenwood, 1993.
Taylor, Nathan. “Legendary Author John McPhee on Procrastination, Dread, and His Endless Final Project.” GQ, 14 Aug. 2023, www.gq.com/story/john-mcphee-interview. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Tilden, Norma. “Stratigraphies: Writing a Suspect Terrain.” Biography, vol. 25, 2002.
Vognar, Chris, and John McPhee. “John McPhee Discusses his New 'Old-people Project,' 'Tabula Rasa.'” Los Angeles Times, 13 July 2023, www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2023-07-13/john-mcphee-calls-his-new-book-an-old-people-project-consider-the-alternative. Accessed 9 July 2024.
Weltzein, O. Alan, and Susan N. Maher, editors. Coming into McPhee Country: John McPhee and the Art of Literary Nonfiction. Logan: U of Utah P, 2003.