Reporting at Wit's End
Tales from The New Yorker
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Narrated by:
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John Morgan
About this listen
"Why does A. J. Liebling remain a vibrant role model for writers while the superb, prolific St. Clair McKelway has been sorely forgotten?" James Wolcott asked this question in a recent review of The Complete New Yorker on DVD. Anyone who has read a single paragraph of McKelway's work would struggle to provide an answer.
His articles for The New Yorker were defined by their clean language and incomporable wit, by his love of New York's rough edges and his affection for the working man (whether that work was come by honestly or not). Like Joseph Mitchell and A. J. Liebling, McKelway combined the unflagging curiosity of a great reporter with the narrative flair of a master storyteller. William Shawn, the magazine's long-time editor, described him as a writer with the "lightest of light touches". His style is so striking, Shawn went on to say, that "it was too odd to be imitated".
The pieces collected here are drawn from two of McKelway's books - True Tales from the Annals of Crime and Rascality (1951) and The Big Little Man from Brooklyn (1969). His subjects are the small players who in their particulars defined life in New York during the 36 years McKelway wrote: the junkmen, boxing cornermen, counterfeiters, con artists, fire marshals, priests, and beat cops and detectives. The "rascals".
An amazing portrait of a long forgotten New York by the reporter who helped establish and utterly defined New Yorker "fact writing", Reporting at Wit's End is a long overdue celebration of a truly gifted writer.
©2010 Estate of St. Clair McKelway, Introduction copyright 2010 by Adam Gopnik (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
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A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter
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People Who Eat Darkness
- The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo - and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up
- By: Richard Lloyd Parry
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Lucie Blackman - tall, blond, 21 years old - stepped out into the vastness of Tokyo in the summer of 2000 and disappeared. The following winter, her dismembered remains were found buried in a seaside cave. The seven months in between had seen a massive search for the missing girl involving Japanese policemen, British private detectives, and Lucie’s desperate but bitterly divided parents. Had Lucie been abducted by a religious cult or snatched by human traffickers? Who was the mysterious man she had gone to meet? And what did her work as a hostess in the notorious Roppongi district of Tokyo really involve?
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This is the audiobook against I rate all others.
- By El_Ron on 03-08-13
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The Case of the Velvet Claws
- Perry Mason Series, Book 1
- By: Erle Stanley Gardner
- Narrated by: Alexander Cendese
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Married Eva Griffin has been caught with a prominent congressman, and is ready to pay the editor of a sleazy tabloid hush money to protect the politician. But first Perry Mason tracks down the publisher of the blackmailing tabloid and discovers a shocking secret, which eventually leads to Mason being accused of murder. This is the first Perry Mason mystery and our introduction to secretary Della Street, detective Paul Drake, and the great lawyer himself.
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Enter Perry Mason
- By David S. Mathew on 04-10-17
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Pietr the Latvian
- Inspector Maigret, Book 1
- By: Georges Simenon, David Bellos - translator
- Narrated by: Gareth Armstrong
- Length: 3 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The first audiobook which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos.Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man.
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Long live Maigret
- By Adeliese Baumann on 11-19-14
By: Georges Simenon, and others
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The Last Madam
- A Life in the New Orleans Underworld
- By: Christine Wiltz
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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1916: Norma Wallace, age 15, arrived in New Orleans. Sexy and shrewd, she quickly went from streetwalker to madam and by 1920 had opened what became a legendary house of prostitution. There she entertained a steady stream of governors, gangsters, and movie stars until she was arrested at last in 1962. Shortly before she died in 1974, she tape-recorded her memories. With those tapes and original research, Christine Wiltz chronicles Norma's rise and fall with the social history of New Orleans.
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pronunciations
- By lynda on 07-29-19
By: Christine Wiltz
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The Mark Inside
- A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con
- By: Amy Reading
- Narrated by: Richard McGonagle
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1919, Texas rancher J. Frank Norfleet lost everything he had in a stock market swindle. He did what many other marks did - he went home, borrowed more money from his family, and returned for another round of swindling. Only after he lost that second fortune did he reclaim control of his story. Instead of crawling back home in shame, he vowed to hunt down the five men who had conned him. Through Norfleet's ingenious reverse-swindle, Amy Reading reveals the mechanics behind the scenes of the big con.
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Confusing Premise Makes for A Tough Read
- By Grumpy S. Monkey on 06-19-12
By: Amy Reading
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The Tangled Web
- The Life and Death of Richard Cain—Chicago Cop and Mafia Hitman
- By: Michael Cain
- Narrated by: Clinton Wade
- Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The Tangled Web tells the dramatic story of detective Richard Cain's criminal career as revealed by his half-brother, Michael. Cain led a double-life—one as a well-known cop who led raids that landed on the front pages, and the other as a "made man" in one of Chicago's most notorious mob families.
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Reviews
- By G. D. Hoppe on 11-19-20
By: Michael Cain
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On Wings of Eagles
- By: Ken Follett
- Narrated by: Marcia Hyde, Larry Robinson, Ralph Williams, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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When two of his American employees were held hostage in a heavily guarded prison fortress in Iran, one man took matters into his own hands: American businessman H. Ross Perot. His team consisted of a group of volunteers from the executive ranks of his corporation, hand-picked and trained by a retired Green Beret officer. To free the imprisoned Americans, they would face incalculable odds on a mission that only true heroes would have dared.
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Was the narrator in a hurry?
- By Tammy on 06-19-08
By: Ken Follett
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A Death in Belmont
- By: Sebastian Junger
- Narrated by: Kevin Conway
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1963, with the city of Boston already terrified by a series of savage crimes known as the Boston Stranglings, a murder occurred in Belmont, just a few blocks from the house of Sebastian Junger's family, a murder that seemed to fit exactly the pattern of the Strangler. Roy Smith, a black man who had cleaned the victim's house that day, was convicted, but the terror of the Strangler continued.
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Excellent
- By Susanna on 01-13-15
By: Sebastian Junger
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A Secret Life
- The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland
- By: Charles Lachman
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The child was born on September 14, 1874, at the only hospital in Buffalo, New York, that offered maternity services for unwed mothers. It was a boy, and though he entered the world in a state of illegitimacy, a distinguished name was given to this newborn: Oscar Folsom Cleveland. The son of the future president of the United States - Grover Cleveland. The story of how the man who held the nation’s highest office eventually came to take responsibility for his son is a thrilling one that unfolds like a sordid romance novel....
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Are the charges true?
- By Jean on 02-16-13
By: Charles Lachman
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American Brutus
- John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
- By: Michael Kauffman
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 21 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In American Brutus, popular historian Michael W. Kauffman delivers a history that reads more like a best-selling novel. This definitive masterwork dispels commonly held myths and reveals the truth about John Wilkes Booth. Luring Southern sympathizers into a “noble” presidential kidnapping, Booth stunned his puzzled pawns by murdering Lincoln. From Booth’s early life and acting career to his escape and death, this meticulously researched book re-examines it all using a wealth of primary sources.
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informative
- By Sue Ogle on 11-27-20
By: Michael Kauffman
What listeners say about Reporting at Wit's End
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ray M
- 02-25-15
Less would have been more
As a longtime New Yorker subscriber I have always prized the magazine for its great lineup of writers, past and present. So when I heard of this collection I was excited to make the acquaintance of a writer I was only dimly familiar with. Some of the stories in this collection are witty and wonderful. The incompetent counterfeiter. The various petty criminals, arsonists, and crackpots. But there are a couple of longer stories that mar this collection. Partly because there is no editor to explain the context of these stories, both about the author himself (one a story about his accusation that Chester Nimitz was a traitor and the other a meandering story about a possible kidnapping/murder plot which was most likely either a prank or a delusion) but also because it is harder to really understand the point the author was trying to make. Anyway. Leaving these longer stories out would have left the book a couple of hours shorter, but not appreciably less fascinating. McKelway seems to have been most at home with the oddball criminals and either full blown lunatics or at least quite eccentric characters of the era. There is a real fondness for exploring these troubled souls and, especially in the hapless counterfeiter story, it is hard not to feel some genuine sympathy or even liking for them. Also, McKelway was true to the New Yorker tradition for seamless prose. Even the shorter pieces bear the mark of a master. The only other complaint, a mild one surely, is that the narrator is good at description and narrative, but when assuming a character's voice, especially the female characters, his narration begins to falter badly. An enjoyable book but you may want to fast forward some.
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