Maraú Península: The World of John McPhee

Sunday, March 21

The World of John McPhee

From The New Yorker’s archive: a selection of pieces from McPhee’s extraordinary and ongoing career at the magazine.
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The World of John McPhee

John McPhee, who turned ninety earlier this month, began his career at The New Yorker, in 1963, with an account of his time at Cambridge University. For his second piece, he profiled Bill Bradley, then a college athlete whose rigorous, precise approach to the game of basketball has always reminded me of McPhee’s mode of reporting. At the time, Bradley, a banker’s son from Missouri, was scoring points for Princeton game after game, from every possible angle. He would often make blind passes or shoot without any conceivable view of the hoop—something unusual in those days. When McPhee asked how he accomplished these feats, Bradley replied that you need to have “a sense of where you are,” an instinct born of work, of constant practice.

This month, on the occasion of John’s birthday, we celebrate his extraordinary and ongoing career at The New Yorker, beginning with the Bradley Profile. Food is occasionally at the delicious center of a McPhee piece, and, in 1979, he wrote “A Philosopher in the Kitchen,” about a cook in an obscure restaurant who had thoroughly dazzled him. Known for his books on the natural world, including “Coming Into the Country,” his masterpiece about Alaska, McPhee also wrote for the magazine, in 1988, about society’s attempt to “control” nature, in “Los Angeles Against the Mountains.” For a peek at John’s relationship with his editors over the years, enjoy his short, hilarious “Editors & Publisher.” These four pieces provide only a hint of John’s astonishing collection of work, his range and his passions, but they do give a taste of his inimitable prose. And we bet that after reading, or re-reading, them, you will go on reading from there.

—David Remnick