John McPhee’s ‘Silk Parachute’ Is an Uplifting Triumph of Style

“Silk Parachute,” John McPhee’s latest anthology of essays, is already a relic. A slender addendum to McPhee’s two previous collections of personal essays and literary journalism, this book evokes a rapidly fading epoch in which compendia of previously published works (not to mention books in general) could still turn a profit. Indeed, “Silk Parachute” often feels as though it was rushed to press too quickly. The highlight of the book, “Spin Right and Shoot Left,” which examines the history and current state of lacrosse, was published in “The New Yorker” less than a year ago, and without the literal and intellectual heft of this piece, this anthology would be too slight to warrant the name.

This isn’t as much of a problem as it sounds; if these pieces are less ambitious than McPhee’s books, they succeed as especially substantial and elegant nonfiction. This collection provides an enticing introduction to a body of work that can be intimidating by virtue of its sheer volume and journalistic rigor.

The eponymous essay, “Silk Parachute,” opens the collection. Despite being McPhee’s most anthologized piece, it mainly excels at its style, and its content is not as intellectually rich or complex as the later pieces. It serves as an adequate introduction to the book and establishes an introspective tone that will stand out to readers more accustomed to McPhee’s journalistic mode.

Although it is pleasant to see a talented writer branch into new territory, exposition remains McPhee’s strength and thus his longer, more journalistic pieces are most rewarding. McPhee’s style is unique, but in a way that does not encroach upon the material. The worst narrative journalists are those that cannot overcome their fondness for their topics; the slightly better ones have trouble overcoming their fondness for their own voice. McPhee is able to avoid both of these pitfalls.

Compare the essays of “Silk Parachute” to those of McPhee’s “New Yorker” colleague, Malcolm Gladwell: although the writers share an interest in people, their processes are polar opposites. McPhee starts with a detailed discussion of a topic, be it “eccentric food” or Europe’s chalk country, and allows his topic to elucidate a truism about society with such finesse that it seems accidental. Rather than spend pages reveling in the significance of what he has found—like Gladwell—the most poignant insights are sown unassumingly amid expository passages, leaving the patient reader to experience the joy of discovery that McPhee must have felt during his research.

Because of this, McPhee’s journalism can be challenging. His writing has a crisp physicality and attention to detail: he is fond of lists, and he does not cut corners. It is easy to see how a younger writer, more enamored of punch and cleverness, might sigh at a passage like the following from “Under the Cloth;” “They cross the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey and go north on the Palisades Parkway to Rockefeller Lookout in Englewood Cliffs.” The cacophony of place names does nothing to move the essay along, and it might be argued that such attention to detail crosses the line into self-indulgence. However, this trademark specificity is what gives these pieces their grounding.

McPhee’s obsession with setting hints at the true significance of “Silk Parachute”: collected, these essays reveal not only a stunning attention to detail, but also the degree to which McPhee is steeped in the world in which he was raised—the intellectual scene of the American Northeast. When he writes that “Los Angeles might as well be Tokyo” in the East Coast-centered world of lacrosse, he could easily be talking about himself; his entire oeuvre could well be seen as an unsuccessful attempt to escape this cultural milieu. While he certainly managed to transcend the typical place and subject matter of the northeastern writer, he never quite shakes that intellectual sensibility, nor the envelope of privilege through which he perceives the worlds he describes.

But if champagne-making, nature photography and the U.S. Open are not the most daring of topics, McPhee deserves credit for writing about what he understands, and his depth of knowledge is unassailable. Moreover, he manages to tell very detailed stories without sacrificing any stylistic verve.

The most resonant piece in “Silk Parachute” can be easy to overlook. Near the end of the book, seemingly an afterthought to the fact-heavy pieces that precede it, “Checkpoints” explores the process of fact-checking at “The New Yorker.” The essay is a triumph of form, weaving together a broad swath of anecdotes and characters without feeling like what it is: a hodgepodge. But more importantly, it offers something unusual and valuable—a clean and frank description of the toil of writing about the world.

In “Checkpoints,” McPhee good-naturedly summarizes the unglamorous aspects of journalism: the deliberations about comma placement, the silly follow-up interviews, the tension between writer, editor, fact-checker and subject. It’s enough to deter many who, after the quiet delights of the preceding essays, might understandably wish to quit their day jobs and write for “The New Yorker.” But while it certainly obliterates any illusions that McPhee’s job is an easy one, it is also an affirmation of why his essays are worthwhile, both for the writer and the reader. Each piece demonstrates exceptional command of style and tells a penetrating story, and while the topics are occasionally obscure, they never feel unimportant.

—Staff writer Abigail B. Lind can be reached at alind@fas.harvard.edu.