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Cover of “The Lede: Dispatches From a Life in the Press” by Calvin Trillin
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Review: Calvin Trillin takes a stroll down memory lane

Random House

Review: Calvin Trillin takes a stroll down memory lane

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Are you old enough to remember Joe Bob Briggs? Back when newspapers were entertaining, Joe Bob’s descriptions of blood-and-gore drive-in movies in the now defunct Dallas Times Herald was a marked departure, or new low, in the usual content of your daily paper.

When its regular movie reviewer John Bloom – a dedicated “cineaste” – wondered how the paper could deal with the steady stream of trashy films like “Bloodsucking Freaks” or “Gas Pump Girls,” in 1981 he created the redneck alter-ego, a lust-filled and unapologetic lowlife, and let his mind go places it probably shouldn’t have.


THE LEDE: DISPATCHES FROM A LIFE IN THE PRESS
 
By Calvin Trillin
Random House ($30)

A typical Briggs review:

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“Two heads roll. Arms roll. Legs roll. Something else rolls… Eight corpses. One beast with a chainsaw. Four gallons of blood… Splatter city. Joe Bob says check it out.”

Four years later, the “high sheriffs” of the Dallas Times Herald told Joe Bob to find another drive-in, preferably not in Texas, after his alter ego wrote an embarrassing piece full of racism and it was somehow published under the editors’ noses.

(The Post-Gazette tried a similar idea years ago called “Munch,” when upscale restaurants were opening in Pittsburgh. The anonymous Munch instead reviewed dive bars, old-fashioned diners and greasy spoons with snide comments about the city’s beloved neighborhoods. The PG’s high sheriffs eventually shut it down as well.)

The saga of Joe Bob / John Bloom is one of 36 media-themed essays in Calvin Trillin’s latest book – he’s written nearly three dozen – that appeared originally mainly in the New Yorker magazine since 1963. The title is newspaper jargon for the first paragraph of a story, and I’ve already broken two of the lede’s rules: Keep it to one sentence and never start with a question.

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When the novice reporter James Thurber was told the rules, his story started, “Dead.

That’s what the man was when they found him with a knife in his back…." It's a classic of journalism.

“Lede” demonstrates what a wide range Trillin, 89, covered in his long career, starting with reports on the civil rights protests of the early 1960s. Acquainted with many respected journalists and writers – he spoke at Joan Didion’s memorial service in 2022 – Trillin seemed to be everywhere in the nation’s media history.

This collection includes his obituaries of columnist and humorist Molly Ivins, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Russell Baker, writer John Gregory Dunne (spouse of Didion) and National Book Award-winner Murray Kempton.

It also includes a character study of newspaper publisher Conrad Black, an account of former President George W. Bush cutting brush and fishing at his Texas ranch, speculation about the phrase “the greatest generation” and views on his favorite topic – eating.

“Lede” is a stroll down memory lane and sadly contains no observations on the current state of the media, much to that field’s relief.

Not too many heads roll. Little-to-no blood. Still: Bob Hoover says check it out.

Bob Hoover is a retired book editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

First Published: March 2, 2024, 10:30 a.m.

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Cover of “The Lede: Dispatches From a Life in the Press” by Calvin Trillin  (Random House)
Author Calvin Trillin  (Richard Stamelman)
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