There's a very weird, very long, article in the newest TNR explaining that David Sedaris stories often contain exaggerations, occasionally feature misrepresentations, and once in awhile are largely fabricated. The remarkable thing about the article, though, is how little wrongdoing the author actually unearths. It clearly began as an attempt to eviscerate a contemporary icon, create a new James Frey, but actually admits that, "most of his crimes are petty, making him a nonfiction juvenile delinquent rather than a frogwalk-worthy felon." My world...so rocked.
The real question is how the piece got published, in the inaugural issue of the "new" New Republic, at such length. And on that, I think this commenter gets it right:
It's as if after Heard had committed to the piece and done the research (He hopped a flight all the way to RDU! Wow!) he himself came to realize that there was nothing to expose with his exposee that hadn't already been exposed by the exposee's own target. But instead of pulling the plug on the whole thing--correct move under the circumstances--Heard tries to make nicey-nice with Mr. Sedaris, undercutting his own criticism. The results are schizophrenic.
Travel, time, reporting -- these are what economists call "sunk costs." But rarely do magazines have the courage to stop throwing good pages after bad money. Indeed, when you read an article that has a lot of explication of a possibly grave misdeed, but actually ends up proving that nothing, or fairly little, happened, you're usually looking at a once-promising piece that didn't pan out. Like, it seems, this one. Inside the magazine (and this happens at all magazines, not just TNR), it's understood that what happened is a shame, and we'll do better next time. But to readers, it ends up looking quite odd.
