GWM: I think they are. I’m doing a reaction piece for the Sunday newspaper and at this point we have had about two hundred responses from readers, which is an overwhelming response for us. I think the answer is that if you have a captivating story that is reasonably well told and intelligently put together, I think people connect to that.

GB: So you think the problem is purely an economic one, newspapers not having the money to do this type of thing?

GWM: I think that’s why there isn’t more of this. Even though we are in an era of cost-cutting, I give the Journal credit for devoting the resources. We have a couple other people who do this kind of work at the paper. And the reaction that I can judge, and based of what people have told me, is a strong affirmation of the fact that these things work and they’re needed. I would like to see more. I’d like to see this as the future and not as something that’s dwindling.

GB: Tell me also why you would choose a newspaper format to tell this kind of story. Because one of the other things that’s happening is that this type of long-form journalism is migrating to magazines and books. Does the newspaper itself, as a venue, provide you something that those other media don’t?

GWM: What I like about the newspaper narrative is that people like the suspense of ending a day and knowing that tomorrow there is going to be more, having to wait until tomorrow. It’s not like a book where you can fast forward or read all in one sitting. And that’s exciting. I was excited even though I had written it. I had people saying they were sneaking online to try and find out what happens next.

GB: And it seems like you kept ending each day with a cliffhanger.

GWM: Yeah. That was deliberate. You know, Dickens used to write his novels this way. Not that I’m comparing myself Dickens. But it’s not new. It works.

GB: One of things I found impressive was that most of his life takes place inside of institutions, where one would think things would be fairly static in terms of what is actually happening, but you make it very dynamic. Did that pose an initial challenge for you when you decided to tell the scope of someone’s life — not a life where he’s off having adventures, but one where he is basically sitting in the same place for decades and decades?

GWM: I was surprised at the kind of life he had there. I had done a lot of medical writing, but I had never spent this kind of time inside an institution. And so that did surprise me. But looking back on it, if you have a group of people living together, the same laws of human relations are going to occur— people are going to fall in and out of love, some people are going to have fun, some are not. He and his friends were unusual in the sense that they all had this upbeat attitude. I think that was one of the nice things about the series, was showing that despite what from the outside certainly looks like very foreboding circumstances you can have a very full life. And I liked that. That said something about people that made me happy.

GB: It sounds like there was also a certain importance for you in writing about someone who is not famous. I felt the series was infused with this sense that this was an important life story to tell, not just those of presidents or movie stars.

GWM: This in a way immortalizes somebody who is an important person, someone we can learn something from. And you’re absolutely right. He’s not a public figure. He’s not a celebrity. He’s not a politician. He in many ways is just an ordinary person who has done some extraordinary things. And that is a story that appeals. And I think that struck a chord with our readers as well. Here we went inside a place that we don’t usually go, found this man that you don’t usually meet, and from all appearances he’s a man in a wheelchair who can paint. But obviously he’s a lot more than that. And that’s what we learn.

GB: How has Frank responded to the series?

GWM: He’s enjoying it. His life means something. It meant something before this and this doesn’t change that meaning. But it brings that meaning to a larger audience. I was just toying in my head with the lead for the reaction piece this weekend and it’s just going to be something straightforward like, “In an era of war and terror and political scandal, there is still room for a story of good, old-fashioned human triumph.”

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