annotations: esquire's american boy
Jennifer Percy's "The Life of an American Boy at 17"; feces families; and other things I read
Friends and foes, hello! Welcome to the annotations newsletter. I’ve typed and deleted these opening sentences about a dozen times and still have nothing worth saying here, so let’s just get into it.
annotated: “The Life of an American Boy at 17” by Jennifer Percy, Esquire
I hadn’t planned on annotating a story I didn’t particularly like in my first week out the gate; why waste time and energy close-reading something that doesn’t spark joy? But there is value in engaging critically with a text, so, I mean, whatever.
First, we have to talk about the cover:
Even in the digital age, a cover still means something: a peacocking display of brand identity and taste from the publisher; a status symbol for the subject; the first—and often only—impression left on a reader. Here, the overwhelming impression is of Esquire’s confidence in defining “an American boy” as “white, middle class, and male.” As if these subjects haven’t already been given enough inches in glossy pages. As if they face unique challenges in navigating “social media, school shootings, toxic masculinity, #MeToo, and a divided country.” As if they are endangered and could lose everything.
In a vacuum, perhaps, this cover and the story could be fine. Esquire indicates that it’s part one in “a series on growing up now—white, black, LGBTQ, female—that will continue to appear in coming issues.” But let’s not pretend that American news media, culture, and power structures have not historically been slanted towards one particular viewpoint and viewership. “I tired long ago of white people being presented to me as archetypal Americana,” tweeted Rolling Stone’s Jamil Smith.
And then I read the story itself. It’s to Esquire’s own detriment that they cite Susan Orlean’s 1992 classic “The American Man, Age 10” as a direct inspiration because, of course, that necessitates direct comparison. In his tone-deaf EIC’s note, Jay Fielden writes:
This first installment, written by Jennifer Percy, doesn’t have the same aim as Orlean’s piece, which sought to capture a key stage in a boy’s life. What we asked Jen to do—and she did brilliantly—was to look at our divided country through the eyes of one kid.
Not just the same aim—Percy’s piece lacks the same electrifying current running through Orlean’s, the intimate knitting together of flesh and bone and a 10-year-old’s self-assured grasp of the world that can only come from really getting to know a person, and from wanting to do him and his world justice in text (it’s a great read, made even better by these annotations on Nieman Storyboard). There’s no question: “The Life of an American Boy at 17” can’t compete with “The American Man, Age 10.”
One of the key problems is that the 2019 piece is controversial, but at its core also damningly unimaginative. Not much happens, on both an external action level and an interior excavation level. Ryan as he’s depicted isn’t the most compelling character on which to hinge the definition of American boyhood (also: note how a 10-year-old is framed as “the American man” in Orlean’s piece, in which she grapples with masculinity and what it means to grow up absorbing the markers of manhood in American society; now, in 2019, Ryan is “an American boy,” and we’re acutely aware of who is afforded this luxury of optics in the U.S.). At most, he’s used as a sort of vessel through which Esquire can explore a set of pre-determined issues (which Fielden himself admits plainly in his note). This does a disservice to the subject himself, but perhaps it suits Esquire’s aims just fine; after all, it is a historically white, male, middle/upper-middle-class magazine, with an audience to match. Many of the readers may recognize a part of themselves in this blank slate.
(I thought a lot about how to best display and share annotations, and I decided for now on public Google Docs with the comments turned on. That means you can add your own comments, too. It might be kind of cool, like a real-time collaborative editing process. Or maybe more like an annoying school project. Who knows. If there are any good comments, I might highlight them in next week’s newsletter.)
read:
Most of these are recent, but some are not, in part because I’m perpetually behind on longer stories that I let fester in Pocket for weeks (seriously, how do you all juggle news articles + blog posts + magazine long reads + books consumption [+ TV!!!]), and in part because I’ve noticed many people tend to recommend a common handful of “best of”/“trending” stories each week, and I’d striving to avoid that unbearable sameness of recency:
The Porta-Potty King of NYC story is as entertaining as everyone says, although I kinda wish it were even longer? I found the comedown surprisingly abrupt. Please… the people demand more feces families. [Intelligencer]
Part anthropological journey, part science, entirely engrossing: Ross Andersen on animal cognition. [The Atlantic]
Always read John Herrman. His dive into the world of Amazon’s “Vine Reviewers” is particularly fascinating. [NYT]
“Think about that paycheck, and think about perfecting your work experience, how to burn a minimal, efficient amount of calories to accomplish your tasks with the least amount of friction possible, and to be a wholly unremarkable yet satisfactory employee.” vs. “I was the person who worked the extra hours, who dug into my own pocket for things that made the office a little more tolerable, who spoke up at meetings, who volunteered for stuff, who literally always wanted to get the gang together and put on a show.” Which work philosophy do you subscribe to? Personally, I don’t have a fucking clue! [Hmm Daily]
A detailed account of last fall’s Google walkouts. I like that the structure is broken down day by day. Editors are always saying to just write chronologically; it’s particularly helpful in a story like this, in which we’re looking back and seeing how a chain of events unfolds. [Intelligencer]
“Comma Queen” Mary Norris writes about the pleasures of the Greek language. Any story touching on language and linguistics and the etymology of words… just hook it to my veins, thanks!!! [New Yorker]
File these under “food stuff not immediately relevant to me but still wholly pleasurable to peruse”: Tejal Rao on classic LA restaurants and Samin Nosrat on “American” mango pie. [NYT]
These are primarily photos, not words, but please it’s so important that you look at all the good dogs at the Westminster show. [NYT]
noted
Some excerpts from “Is Line Editing a Lost Art?” in Lit Hub:
Line suggests a sense both mercurial and typographic. A line is poetic and literal; where the hope of intention meets the reality of the page. Line editing is the ultimate union of writer and editor; the line-edit means we cede control, and the pen, to someone else. It is a gift of trust, and it must go both ways.
Line editors tighten sentences when tension and clarity is missing, but they also give sentences breath when constrained. Beyond removing clichés, they excise a writer’s pet words and mannered constructions. Line editors help sentences build into paragraphs, and paragraphs flow into pages.
“teaching fiction writing and editing magazine fiction have many odd differences,” but “they do have the same rather odd ultimate purpose in common: trying to get someone else to produce a fine short story.”
P.S.
only “me on deadline” is all the time :)))
Okay thank you!! Please feel free to reply or @ me or share this newsletter somewhere, if you’re so inclined. See you next week.
jgz (@jennygzhang)