Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction
Kidder might not have won the Pulitzer or the National Book Award if he hadn’t met editor Todd at the Atlantic Monthly in 1973. The two have been in cahoots ever since, and they now share their dedication to “good prose” and expertise in creating it with warmth, zest, and wit in this well-structured, to-the-point, genuinely useful, and fun-to-read guide to writing narrative nonfiction, essays, and memoir, and to being edited, a crucial, though often overlooked, step. Kidder and Todd each tell tales about the challenges they’ve faced in anecdotal passages that alternate with joint discussions of increasingly complex matters of content, style, and tricky moral issues that highlight the pitfalls and privileges involved in writing factual stories. Kidder and Todd also offer some of the most lucid, specific, and tested guidance available about technical essentials, from determining what makes a good nonfiction story to choosing a point of view to achieving accuracy and clarity. Rich in quotes from such standard-setting nonfiction artists as Orwell, McPhee, and Didion, Kidder and Todd’s book about strong writing is crisp, informative, and mind-expanding. --Donna Seaman