Harry Crews

Scott Anderson

Mary Kay Blakely

A collection of the very best in contemporary first-person journalism compiled by the award-winning former Washington Post reporter and author.

Great journalists, at one time or another, have all been characters in their own stories: people with personalities that shaped what they saw and reported, and were touched and changed by the experiences about which they wrote; and innovators who borrowed the storytelling techniques of fiction. The Beholder’s Eye showcases the very best of an increasing trend toward personal narrative: Mike Sager stalking Marlon Brando in the Tahitian jungle; J. R. Moehringer’s quest to discover the true identity of an old boxer; Bill Plaschke’s story about a woman with cerebral palsy who runs an obscure Los Angeles Dodgers Web site; Scott Anderson’s story of his lifetime of covering war after war; Harrington’s own tale of his interracial family’s struggle to persevere; and many others. 

Written by reporters who were willing to reveal themselves in order to bring readers insights that were deeper than supposedly objective third-person stories, their articles are an invaluable resource for aspiring journalists, students, and teachers of the craft of writing, and any reader with an appreciation for masterful storytelling.

“Aims to dispel the old journalistic cliché: that a journalist writing about him/herself is always ‘self-indulgent and, quite likely, narcissistic. ’ He couldn’t have put together a better line-up of writers to make the point that it doesn’t have to be … Not just some of the country’s finest personal journalism, but some of its finest journalism, period. ”—Kirkus Reviews