Lance Morrow

I’ve read Lance Morrow’s writing since it first appeared in Time magazine in the mid-‘60s. At that time I was a teenager, soon to be a journalism major at Indiana University. I think I was less attracted to Morrow for the content of what he wrote and more for the quality of his writing. I doubt I realized that at the age of 15. I mainly read Time because my dad was a faithful subscriber, and it was one of the many publications that graced the end tables of our living room. Then in the mid ‘70s, by then a high school English and journalism teacher of future Woodwards and Bernsteins, I subscribed myself, again mainly for the writing but by now also for the information I thought I needed as an adult. The first place I turned each week when Time arrived in my mailbox was the back page because that is where I was more than likely to find Lance Morrow’s essays. Again, I cared less about what he was saying and more about how he was saying it. Like my motivation for reading anything by Tom Wolfe, reading Lance Morrow was a smorgasbord of language use, and I loved it. I still do, and I search out writers who still have a flare for the language, few and far between as they are. “The Noise of Typewriters” is vintage Morrow in its writing. Thank goodness for my Kindle’s trusty tap, hold, and have a definition pop up feature…..and not just the vocabulary. The allusions are equally challenging in Morrow’s book. “The Noise of Typewriters” is a short book, barely 200 pages with acknowledgements and index, and it might be more history of journalism than the casual reader wants, but Lance Morrow’s writing is worth the proverbial price of admission. And read the last chapter, 31, slowly to really enjoy it. It’s about the 75th anniversary of Time magazine at Radio City Music Hall at the end of March 1998. The celebration was a dinner for the who’s who of the world-“several generations of actors, politicians, baseball players, boxers, industrialists, scientists, ballet dancers, and assorted geniuses. along with the president of the United States, Bill Clinton, and his wife.” If you’re at all like me, you won’t be able to avoid thinking long and hard about turning the 6,000 seat auditorium at Radio City into a ballroom with hundreds of tables to accommodate the 1,200 illustrious guests. No, they didn’t take the seats out to do it. Lance Morrow is still alive and in his mid 80s, but he can still write (this book came out in 2023), and I still enjoy reading him as much for how he writes as for what he writes. The man is one of American journalism’s crown jewels.… (plus d'informations)

4927. The Chief A Memoir of Fathers and Sons, by Lance Morrow (read 31 May 2012) This is a 1984 memoir by the author, who has written more cover stories for TIME than any other person. In this book he tells of his boyhood--his unusual relationship with his parents, his time at Gonzaga High school in Washington, D.C., , his time as a Senate page at age 16, his time at Harvard, his work with newspapers. and his heart attack in 1976 at age 36, his father's time as Nelson Rockefeller's aide for 22 years, and other interesting things. The book is not chronological and it would have been better if it were, but Morrow is able to write interestingly and the book is good to read even though it is over 25 years old.… (plus d'informations)