The New Yorker writer Joseph Mitchell was expert at writing profiles of
non-celebrities: his sympathy for the subjects he chose seemed ensured
by their lack of renown; they were just ordinary folks going about their
trades or reminiscing. And what a splendid prose stylist he was! I would
be tempted to propose him as a model for all to emulate, were it not for
a few qualms. It is not simply that everyone's monologues in his
profiles end up sounding like Joseph Mitchell, or the fictional nature
of some accounts. More concerning, to me, is the universally benevolent,
accepting tone of these profiles: he took everyone he interviewed at
their word, which means he failed to consider the self-delusions,
rationalizations, and outright lies, unconscious or otherwise, to which
we earthlings fall prey. The most blatant case was Joe Gould, whose
self-mythologizing account Mitchell swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
When he finally corrected it years later, in "Joe Gould's Secret," he
seemed so stunned by the discovery that his subjects were not
necessarily to be trusted that that he never wrote a profile again. Now,
me, I'm too interested in people's flaws, their potential for evil, the
gap between self-presentation and inner reality, or the many ways we
fool ourselves. Such negative-sounding preoccupations are not
recommended for a long and healthy career in the composing of celebrity
profiles.