March 1, 2010 Issue

When I turned to Larissa MacFarquhar’s “The Deflationist,” which bears the tagline, “How Paul Krugman found politics,” I thought Oh boy, this is going to be a wearisome slog. Then I read the first paragraph and found myself hooked. But not for long. This is one of the most boring pieces ever to appear in the magazine. Krugman and his wife come across as drone-like careerists. Maybe MacFarqhuar intended that effect. Maybe I’m just tired of politicians and economists and all their empty rhetoric. Maybe I’m feeling some of that Tea Party disaffection that Ben McGrath so ably wrote about in the magazine a couple of weeks ago (“The Movement,” February 1, 2010).

McGrath has a piece in the current issue, which I’m pleased to turn to now. “Strangers on the Mountain” is this week’s Pick Of The Issue. I read it quickly. You might almost say I skimmed it, touching down now and then for a closer read, and when I came to the last part – the section that begins, “Harold Dennison pleaded guilty to weapons charges …” – I slowed down to absorb the writing. Then I turned back and reread the whole piece, taking pleasure in the way it’s structured and in various inspired sentences. (Example: “After more than a mile of steep, winding incline, of the sort that strains an old Honda Civic, I had to slow to let a family of wild turkeys pass.”) If I’m not mistaken, McGrath is forging his own recognizable journalistic style. He throws a lot into his articles, lots of facts, people, and places, churning in a fast-paced narrative. His stories don’t sit still; they’re alive on the page. There’s a fizz in his prose I really enjoy.