The Fiddler in the Subway: The Story of the World-Class Violinist Who Played for Handouts. . . And Other Virtuoso Performances by America's Foremost Feature Writer

by Gene Weingarten

Overview

GENE WEINGARTEN IS THE O. HENRY OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM

Simply the best storyteller around, Weingarten describes the world as you think it is before revealing how it actually is—in narratives that are by turns hilarious, heartwarming, and provocative, but always memorable.

Millions of people know the title piece about violinist Joshua Bell, which originally began as a stunt: What would happen if you put a world-class musician outside a Washington, D.C., subway station to play for spare change? Would anyone even notice? The answer was no. Weingarten’s story went viral, becoming a widely referenced lesson about life lived too quickly. Other classic stories—the one about “The Great Zucchini,” a wildly popular but personally flawed children’s entertainer; the search for the official “Armpit of America”; a profile of the typical American nonvoter—all of them reveal as much about their readers as they do their subjects.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781439181591
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	07/06/2010
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	363
Sales rank:	539,834
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Gene Weingarten is a nationally syndicated humor columnist and a Pulitzer Prize–winning staff writer for The Washington Post. He lives in Washington, DC.

Editorial Reviews

Gene Weingarten is the best writer in American journalism. He’s a master at finding a story that nobody else would have thought to pursue, researching it doggedly, and telling it in such a riveting way that you feel as though you’re reading a terrific novel.”
—Dave Barry, author, humorist, and columnist

"'The Great Zucchini’ is the greatest feature story ever written.”
—Erik Wemple, The Washington City Paper

“Giving Gene Weingarten the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing was like giving Martin Scorsese the Oscar for Best Director: it’s not about what he did that year, it’s about what he’s been doing for decades, better than anybody, even before people started to notice. He’s the best non-fiction writer in America, and only a few of us knew it. Now, with this anthology, we get to say: Told ya.”
—Peter Sagal, host of NPR’s “Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me”

"It’s no surprise that a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner would have something useful to say about writing, but Weingarten exceeds expectations in his passionate, irreverent, and instructive introduction to this superb retrospective collection. And the essays themselves prove that this former editor and feature writer turned columnist and “investigative humorist” is one helluva storyteller and a master “stunt” reporter. . . Each of his cockeyed adventures, thanks to his narrative skills and intellectual ethics, yields genuine feelings and discoveries. And for all his daggered humor, Weingarten never condescends. His curiosity is a form of empathy, his cadenced writing testimony to his caring about life, clear thinking, and beauty."
—Booklist

"Every page is a pleasure. . . . A sparkling collection of features by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist, there are plenty of smiles and laughs scattered throughout the uniformly strong pieces assembled here. But the author is about more than grins and giggles. In even the slightest of the essays—seeing his daughter off to college, honoring the memory of his childhood baseball hero—his storytelling, keen observation and deft reporting startle and amaze. . . . Weingarten reliably delivers the goods."
—Kirkus (starred review)

From the Publisher

A sparkling collection of features by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist. For readers who come to Weingarten (Old Dogs: Are the Best Dogs, 2008, etc.) for humor, there are plenty of smiles and laughs scattered throughout the uniformly strong pieces assembled here. But the author is about more than grins and giggles. In even the slightest of the essays-seeing his daughter off to college, honoring the memory of his childhood baseball hero-his storytelling, keen observation and deft reporting startle and amaze. Whether profiling cartoonist Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau or The Great Zucchini, a little-known children's entertainer whose messy personal life belies his talent for beguiling preschoolers, Weingarten reliably delivers the goods. He's equally adept at exhuming quirky stories of the dead, including that of Leslie McFarlane, who as "Franklin W. Dixon" spent a good portion of his frustrated writing career churning out the Hardy Boys mystery series, Mary Hulbert, who died never disclosing the details of her intimate relationship with Woodrow Wilson; and William Jefferson Blythe, killed in a 1946 car crash, who left behind a pregnant wife whose son would grow up to be President Bill Clinton-neither he nor his mother ever knew about Blythe's previous two marriages (to sisters!) or of the stepbrother one union produced. Weingarten shines especially when he sets himself a puzzle. Which among this country's many worthy towns merits the distinction as "The Armpit of America?" What's it like living daily with terror? Is what's happening at the bedside of a brain-dead girl in Worcester, Mass., a miracle or a hustle? If you pick a place on the map and travel there, will you find a good story? So we journey with him to blighted Battle Mountain, Nev.; ponder communion wafers that allegedly contain blood and icons that weep oil; explore Savoonga, the Bering Sea island where the native Yupiks weather a teen-suicide epidemic; and watch world-class violinist Joshua Bell playing in a train station before thousands of mostly oblivious commuters. Every page is a pleasure.

Kirkus Reviews