“Writing
is revision. All prose responds to work.”
–Tracy Kidder
Kidder turns 74 today and I thought
about him and his writing during yesterday’s Veterans Day activities and recently while working
on a writing project for Research Computing at CU Boulder. A Vietnam War veteran, Kidder is well known
in both the writing and computing worlds for the work that won him the Pulitzer
Prize, The Soul of a New Machine.
While that is Kidder’s prize winner,
I think his book House might be even
more deserving. Kidder, who lives in
Williamsburg, MA, said he hit on the idea of writing a book about the trials
and tribulations of building lawyer Jonathan Souweine's Amherst home while
following some local carpenters around.
His hundreds of hours of research
and interviews with everyone from the architect to Souweine’s in-laws to the
builders shows how ordinary parts of our lives can be brought into
extraordinary focus through a writer’s portrayal.
"In fiction,” Kidder said, “believability may have nothing
to do with reality or even plausibility. (But) It has everything to do with
those things in nonfiction. I think that the nonfiction writer's fundamental
job is to make what is true believable."
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