behind the news

‘A Good, Old-Fashioned Human Triumph’

G. Wayne Miller of the Providence Journal on devoting an entire year of reporting to "an ordinary person who has done some extraordinary things."
October 6, 2006

The Providence Journal has always had a reputation as a newspaper that values narrative and gives space to long-form journalism that tells stories rather than simply reporting what happened yesterday. This kind of writing has, of course, started disappearing from newspapers, and not just from the Journal. It was reassuring, then, to read G. Wayne Miller’s 12-part series that appeared over the past two weeks in the Rhode Island paper, telling the remarkable story of Frank Beazley. Abandoned by his unwed mother, sent to orphanages and foster homes, and then tragically paralyzed at the age of 38 and left to spend the rest of his days in the care of a local institution, Beazley nevertheless is a figure of humbling resilience. He has become an acclaimed painter, a poet, and an eloquent advocate for the rights of the handicapped. In Miller’s telling, Beazley’s life is one filled with human drama and, surprisingly, enough suspense to keep readers craving for the next installment in this compelling piece of reportage and storytelling.

Gal Beckerman: You first met Frank in 1992.

G. Wayne Miller: I had actually met him prior to that. He had testified at a hearing or two [on the rights of the handicapped] that I had covered as a beat reporter, almost twenty years ago. But I didn’t connect to him as a person, as an individual, until 1992. At that time, we had a feature that ran in the paper on Christmas called “Good Folks.” And the task for the reporters was to find one good person and write a brief story. I went out and interviewed him and that’s when he told me that all he had ever wanted for Christmas was for his mother to call him “son.”

I got a little bit of the back-story then. Didn’t much think about it afterwards. And then a year ago, summer of 2005, I was casting about for another series. I had always been intrigued by the hospital where he lived. It had been a tuberculosis sanitarium established a hundred years ago. When I got to thinking about what I wanted to do next, I was drawn to it. So I drove up there, reintroduced myself to Frank and talked to the people there and just sort of brainstormed. Once I got to talking with him, I found out about him being abandoned, about the orphanage, the foster home, and then I found out he had some of the records. I realized that this was a special story, and that we had more than just memories. The more I dug into it the more interested I got. The series is the result of a year’s work.

GB: And then what was the process of getting the story from him. Was he forthcoming? Was this something he wanted to do?

GWM: He did. I connected to him on a basic human level. He’s a very decent, good guy. He was very forthcoming. I’ve done enough of this kind of work that I’m very suspect of memory. I don’t like building a piece like this entirely on memory. I won’t write that kind of a piece. But his memory, with a few exceptions, always checked out, down to the names of the nuns. So that impressed me, too. And the story was compelling too, as he told it. I would interview him and then I would pursue records and other people who might have memories of him. He gave me access to his entire medical records at the hospital, which goes back almost forty years and covers thousands and thousands of pages.

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GB: It’s interesting what you are saying about the fallibility of memory because I noticed that you chose not to have retrospective quotes, not to quote him talking about his memories.

GWM: I find those clunky. They get in the way. Because I’d like to tell a story the way a novel would run. I didn’t use quotation marks unless it came from a medical record or something I witnessed in my time with him. He would tell me about conversations that he had decades ago and I was convinced that he was telling the truth, but I wasn’t there, I hadn’t heard the words myself.

GB: That’s an interesting ethic, because a lot of writers do quote without having been there, when it’s impossible to verify. What do you think it is about your paper that allows you a whole year to write this gargantuan series about a man who is basically a regular person, not a celebrity or a world leader?

GWM: The candid answer is that this newspaper, along with a few other newspapers, used to do a lot more of this type of work. In the case of the Journal it’s had a very strong writer’s tradition that precedes my arrival there. But unfortunately with belt-tightening and cost cutting there aren’t too many of us left at the Journal doing it.

GB: Or at all.

GWM: Or at all. I haven’t done any great canvassing or anything, but certainly that is my perception as well. It was a huge investment of the paper’s resources. I did almost nothing else for a year. We had a photographer, who wasn’t full time on it, but still devoted quite a bit of time. To put this whole thing together involves a big commitment of resources and manpower.

GB: When I see a series like this, I think how unfortunate that there isn’t more of this in newspapers, because it could be one of the answers to the question of what newspapers can provide that other media can’t. I wonder if you have a bigger idea of why this long-form narrative journalism is dying. Are people not interested in reading something like this anymore?

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.”

Gal Beckerman is a former staff writer at CJR and a writer and editor for the New York Times Book Review.