Recommended Reading: A Word or Two About Stephen J. Dubner

Just finished reading Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper, by Stephen J. Dubner. Prior to that I read his earlier book called Choosing My Religion: A Memoir of a Family Beyond Belief, a fascinating autobiography of (as Dubner puts it) "three noisy souls." 

I tried to get my dad to read the latter, and I think he gave it the good Boy Scout try but evidently gave up. (I asked him when we got together at Christmas if he'd finished it and he shrugged and said he lost interest. My dad is nothing if not consistent: he just isn't interested in religion, no matter how articulate, honest, funny, or intelligent the writing.)

For the record, "articulate, honest, funny, and intelligent" doesn't even begin to describe Dubner's writing. His pedigree is obviously first-rate (here's a link to his bio), so I'm not sure why my dad would snub him. Dubner could probably write about garbage disposals and still be engaging.

I love the way he writes. He's brutally, painfully, excruciatingly, honest. At times, reading Confessions of a Hero-Worshiper, I felt uncomfortable, embarrassed even, for Dubner. His behavior comes across as stalking to the reader, despite the fact that he insists he's not a stalker. The title of one of his chapters is, in fact, "I am Not a Stalker!" (The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.) Yet the very point of this book is to examine the cultural phenomenon of hero-worship. If the confessional nature of the book makes the writer--admittedly obsessed if not infatuated with his childhood hero, Pittsburgh Steeler running back Franco Harris--look foolish, so what? Dubner's a journalist. At their best, journalists report objectively on what they see. If they're being fair, if they're doing their job, the reporting can and should be brutal. Why should he be less brutal when he's the subject of his own reporting? 

At the end of my copy of the book, there's a section called P.S. that includes additional essays by the author. Several of these essays are those that were published in the New York Times Magazine having to do with various sports-related topics: John Unitas ("Steel-Town Quarterback"), football stadiums ("Stronger Than Steel: The Demise of Three River Stadium"), and so on. 

Reading these marvelous essays, one understands why Dubner's an award-winning sports writer. He's an amazing stylist. His metaphors are so fresh, so unusual, so fitting, one can only assume he spends hours conjuring them. His attention to detail boggles the mind. He must literally take notes on life. 

My new ambition is to write half as well as Dubner writes: to take personal risks, to be honest, to call it as I see it, to record life as I live it, to see if, perchance, I have anything left to say.