Lives That Tell A Story
JULY 15, 2007 TAGS:
By Steve Goldstein
Anyone can write an obituary about a famous person. Jim Sheeler has made an art form of finding the poetry in ordinary lives.
Sheeler’s new book, Obit., is a compilation of obituaries he wrote as a journalist for newspapers in Colorado. His goal, he says, was to write about people whose names had never appeared in the newspaper until, of course, they appeared for one time only. In death, Sheeler makes all of his subjects seem alive and vital, and in this sense these stories are what might be called “post-life features” rather than what we commonly think of as obituaries.
In these pages (Pruett Publishing Co., 239 pages, $24.95), you will meet Edward “Duke” Mallory, who rediscovered a long-lost cave in the mountains near Boulder; Harold H. Gray, who started singing at age 100 and set a goal – which he achieved – of living until 105; junior high sweethearts married over 60 years who died within four days of each other, and a 15-year-old with “a beautiful adult mind” who wrote his own code of morals shortly before succumbing to a heart condition.
Writing about Elaine Peck, who spent a lifetime in a print shop, Sheeler describes “a place where the air smells like words” and where the last poem she set in type “weighed about 10 pounds.” Or Robert L. Druva, a corporate executive and amateur cook, whose recipe for turkey stuffing included unpopped popcorn. This made timing the cooking unnecessary, Druva’s recipe said. “When the ass blows off, serve the bird.”
Sheeler finds the extraordinary in the lives of a diner owner, a farmer, a horse trainer, a barfly and a 4-foot-3 hippie bookstore owner.
One of my favorites was about a terminally-ill 44-year-old poet who railed that “people need cancer” to understand what is important in life. “It’s not that there’s too much cancer,” said her husband, mourning her loss, “it’s just that it’s badly distributed.”
In 2006, Sheeler won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing and currently is on sabbatical from the Rocky Mountain News.
I caught up with Sheeler at his home and asked him about finding lives after death.
Steve Goldstein: How do you choose which obituaries to write?
Jim Sheeler: It’s one of the most difficult parts of the job. You really can throw a dart at the obituary page and write about that person. Some are obvious, like the woman who was a butcher and a florist, but also I’ve challenged myself with stories that seem more difficult, like a white-collar middle manager.
SG: Are associates of your subjects eager to speak?
JS: Yes, absolutely. I think it’s because when someone dies, everyone around them doesn’t really know what to say and is very awkward. When you come in with your notebook, you want to talk about their loved one, which is the one thing they want to talk about. So it almost immediately makes them comfortable.
SG: How would you describe your technique in constructing these obits?
JS: It’s mainly looking for scenes of life that remain after the death. When I start the story, I’m looking for similar things that I’d be looking for if I was writing a profile of someone. Action, scenes, little nuggets of wisdom and philosophy that you can take away from the story.
SG: Do you have any literary influences?
JS: I really enjoy reading. Every writer I’ve read influences me in some way. I’ve read all of Cormac McCarthy, I really enjoy Kent Haruf’s books about Colorado. I just stumbled upon Samaritan by Richard Price. Every once in a while I’ll pick up poetry.
SG: Any other influences?
JS: My grandmother was a character who easily could have been in the book. She moved to New Orleans in her 80s and opened up a little private post office in the French Quarter and immediately befriended all of the outcasts of society in the neighborhood. She introduced me to all these people, and I realized there were stories everywhere.
SG: Have you found anything you just couldn’t bear to write about?
JS: If you frame those events in the right way, you can still write about them. Nothing comes to mind that I’ve had to leave in my notebook. I don’t go out trying to make people cry, but sometimes that happens. It has to be a natural part of the story.
SG: The book features several obituaries involving multiple deaths, either natural or accidental. Why?
JS: It was a matter of the stories being compelling. I mainly put the stories in that received the most amount of feedback from readers. A few were my personal favorites that I thought needed to be in there.
SG: Do you ever write about homicides or crimes of passion?
JS. Yes, though there are none in the book. I wrote about a kid killed in a gang-related shooting and a Vietnamese immigrant who was killed in a carjacking. The most difficult part was sifting through hundreds of obituaries I’ve written. How do you whittle that down to 40 lives?
SG: Are you more drawn to incomplete lives, i.e., those dying young, or complete lives?
JS. I’m more drawn to the lives that tell a story that I can learn from. I can’t say that incomplete lives make better stories. It’s just a matter of spending the time to find the story.
SG: Is obituary writing having a renaissance?
JS: I think there is a new respect for obituary writing, and there should be. It’s one of the things that can literally save newspapers. You cannot get these real stories anywhere else. If you get the readers to sit down and know they are going to read about somebody they didn’t know about and learn something about life, then there’s a very good chance those stories will continue to be published.
SG: If you could write the obituary of a noteworthy individual, who would it be?
JS: Desmond Tutu. When I met him, I felt just how infectious his enthusiasm and strength and just brilliance are. He’s a character – hilarious. And his story is an amazing one. It would be a difficult one to write, but one that would mean a lot.
Steve Goldstein, Washington correspondent of The Philadelphia Inquirer, last wrote for Obit about college columbaria.
Anyone can write an obituary about a famous person. Jim Sheeler has made an art form of finding the poetry in ordinary lives.Sheeler’s new book, Obit., is a compilation of obituaries he wrote as a journalist for newspapers in Colorado. His goal, he says, was to write about people whose names had never appeared in the newspaper until, of course, they appeared for one time only. In death, Sheeler makes all of his subjects seem alive and vital, and in this sense these stories are what might be called “post-life features” rather than what we commonly think of as obituaries.
In these pages (Pruett Publishing Co., 239 pages, $24.95), you will meet Edward “Duke” Mallory, who rediscovered a long-lost cave in the mountains near Boulder; Harold H. Gray, who started singing at age 100 and set a goal – which he achieved – of living until 105; junior high sweethearts married over 60 years who died within four days of each other, and a 15-year-old with “a beautiful adult mind” who wrote his own code of morals shortly before succumbing to a heart condition.
Writing about Elaine Peck, who spent a lifetime in a print shop, Sheeler describes “a place where the air smells like words” and where the last poem she set in type “weighed about 10 pounds.” Or Robert L. Druva, a corporate executive and amateur cook, whose recipe for turkey stuffing included unpopped popcorn. This made timing the cooking unnecessary, Druva’s recipe said. “When the ass blows off, serve the bird.”
Sheeler finds the extraordinary in the lives of a diner owner, a farmer, a horse trainer, a barfly and a 4-foot-3 hippie bookstore owner.
One of my favorites was about a terminally-ill 44-year-old poet who railed that “people need cancer” to understand what is important in life. “It’s not that there’s too much cancer,” said her husband, mourning her loss, “it’s just that it’s badly distributed.”
In 2006, Sheeler won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing and currently is on sabbatical from the Rocky Mountain News.
I caught up with Sheeler at his home and asked him about finding lives after death.
Steve Goldstein: How do you choose which obituaries to write?
Jim Sheeler: It’s one of the most difficult parts of the job. You really can throw a dart at the obituary page and write about that person. Some are obvious, like the woman who was a butcher and a florist, but also I’ve challenged myself with stories that seem more difficult, like a white-collar middle manager.
SG: Are associates of your subjects eager to speak?
JS: Yes, absolutely. I think it’s because when someone dies, everyone around them doesn’t really know what to say and is very awkward. When you come in with your notebook, you want to talk about their loved one, which is the one thing they want to talk about. So it almost immediately makes them comfortable.
SG: How would you describe your technique in constructing these obits?
JS: It’s mainly looking for scenes of life that remain after the death. When I start the story, I’m looking for similar things that I’d be looking for if I was writing a profile of someone. Action, scenes, little nuggets of wisdom and philosophy that you can take away from the story.
SG: Do you have any literary influences?JS: I really enjoy reading. Every writer I’ve read influences me in some way. I’ve read all of Cormac McCarthy, I really enjoy Kent Haruf’s books about Colorado. I just stumbled upon Samaritan by Richard Price. Every once in a while I’ll pick up poetry.
SG: Any other influences?
JS: My grandmother was a character who easily could have been in the book. She moved to New Orleans in her 80s and opened up a little private post office in the French Quarter and immediately befriended all of the outcasts of society in the neighborhood. She introduced me to all these people, and I realized there were stories everywhere.
SG: Have you found anything you just couldn’t bear to write about?
JS: If you frame those events in the right way, you can still write about them. Nothing comes to mind that I’ve had to leave in my notebook. I don’t go out trying to make people cry, but sometimes that happens. It has to be a natural part of the story.
SG: The book features several obituaries involving multiple deaths, either natural or accidental. Why?
JS: It was a matter of the stories being compelling. I mainly put the stories in that received the most amount of feedback from readers. A few were my personal favorites that I thought needed to be in there.
SG: Do you ever write about homicides or crimes of passion?
JS. Yes, though there are none in the book. I wrote about a kid killed in a gang-related shooting and a Vietnamese immigrant who was killed in a carjacking. The most difficult part was sifting through hundreds of obituaries I’ve written. How do you whittle that down to 40 lives?
SG: Are you more drawn to incomplete lives, i.e., those dying young, or complete lives?
JS. I’m more drawn to the lives that tell a story that I can learn from. I can’t say that incomplete lives make better stories. It’s just a matter of spending the time to find the story.
SG: Is obituary writing having a renaissance?
JS: I think there is a new respect for obituary writing, and there should be. It’s one of the things that can literally save newspapers. You cannot get these real stories anywhere else. If you get the readers to sit down and know they are going to read about somebody they didn’t know about and learn something about life, then there’s a very good chance those stories will continue to be published.
SG: If you could write the obituary of a noteworthy individual, who would it be?
JS: Desmond Tutu. When I met him, I felt just how infectious his enthusiasm and strength and just brilliance are. He’s a character – hilarious. And his story is an amazing one. It would be a difficult one to write, but one that would mean a lot.
Steve Goldstein, Washington correspondent of The Philadelphia Inquirer, last wrote for Obit about college columbaria.
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