Q&A: Marc Weingarten, The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight
Aileen Gallagher talks with Marc Weingarten, author of The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight, a “straightforward history of the last period in journalism history worth calling ‘new.’”
Mediabistro: How did you go about your research? There’s so much material to draw from about these subjects-how were you able to parse it?
Weingarten: Research was a tough slog. It took almost two years to get everything. And yes, it’s easy to get lost in a rabbit hole with this subject. My intention was to create a readable narrative, and not get bogged down in [the] completism of listing every New Journalist, every piece, every book, etc. So I narrowed it down to a handful of writers, and three main editors-Clay Felker, Harold Hayes and Jann Wenner. Fortunately, Hayes, Wenner and Felker had a hand in so many important pieces that I could use their stories as a throughline, more or less, throughout the book. You have to parse it, otherwise it becomes an amorphous blob of information, in my view.
Mediabistro: Of the subjects you spoke to personally, with whom did you have the best interview experience? Since you were asking about the significant span of their careers, how did you budget your time (and theirs) to get to what you really wanted to know?
Weingarten: Everyone was cooperative. Tom Wolfe invited me into his apartment and then endured many phone call follow-ups, Gay Talese amply offered his time. By far the most memorable experience was the two nights I spent in Woody Creek with Hunter Thompson. I just had a wonderful time with him. I think he enjoyed reliving his salad days for a captive audience. His wife Anita was great, as well-she kept Hunter on point if he drifted too far afield. As far as budgeting my time, I didn’t! You always find that you have to grab something that you didn’t ask initially and so there’s constant follow-up. It’s just the nature of the beast.
More here. And if you’d like to check out a part of Marc’s book, find an excerpt here.
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