New Yorker Obits Really Are the Best -- Here's Why

 One of my favorite (Emerson College) teachers in one of my first-ever journalism classes was from New York, and his accent made me want to live there (which I did, once upon a time).

One of the first things he assigned was obituaries, or obits, as they tend to be called. I tried to make the assignment creative and failed miserably, wondering how anyone could write an obituary worth reading to anyone but a family member.

Years later, I started reading obituaries in The New Yorker, and started to understand how mesmerizing an obituary could be. This idea was borne out again when I read TNY's recent obit on George Booth and I hope you read it too, so you can see what I mean.

Two quick quotes from this piece by Emma Allen:

"Booth, who died this week, at ninety-six (one year younger than this magazine), was a man who took in life, drew it up, and then laughed and laughed."

"The Booth universe is a detritus- and cat- and bull-terrier-packed place that his admirers have gleefully revisited over the years. The reams of fan letters he received during his long tenure included at least one proposal of marriage."

If I ever could choose how someone writes about me when I'm dead, it would be you, Emma, or any of the other New Yorker writers who create obits with such graceful intimacy. Breezy, funny, colorful and written with the hand of an old friend. I've read obituaries almost everywhere they're written and still think TNY's are the best.

I suppose it is because staff members are writing only about their colleagues, and if they are writing about someone else who has departed, it's usually in the form of a longer article and not an obit.

Yes. Yes.

That must be it.

What does that mean for you and me, then?

Go to work at The New Yorker. Stay there forty years, or more if you can. Make friends and hang out with them as much as possible. Make sure the ones you choose will be the sort of friends you always wanted and never found. 

If you do find them, don't move away to the Midwest like I did, becuase you won't be able to see them but once a year or less, and it will break your heart.

I didn't manage to work at the New Yorker, but if anyone there wants to write an obituary about me, I can write it myself (after reading so many) and perhaps you could pretend I am a staff writer? I won't tell, I promise.

And of course--

--neither could you.

Photo by Abhijith S Nair on Unsplash