David Halberstam's New Book to be Promoted by Other Writers

A group of powerhouse non-fiction authors will embark on a series of readings for the new book on the Korean War from the late David Halberstam.

Shortly after Halberstam was killed in a car crash last spring, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Anna Quindlen called his widow and offered to promote the book, according to an AP article. They will be joined by Joan Didion, Seymour Hersh, Samantha Power, and Bill Walton in readings for The Coldest Winter around the country.

A lot of Shakin' and Rattling

We were woken up around 4:42 a.m. this morning by the strongest earthquake we have felt in years. Our house jolted and moved and then lurched some more, prompting me to yell at my daughters to take cover under a door frame. I was so anxious for protection that I fled my bedroom and neglected to take my glasses with me, so I held on blindly until the shaking stopped. It was a 4.2 but the epicenter was near our house, so we really felt it.

Jim Wooten, formerly of ABC News, has written a moving tribute to David Halberstam. The two met as young men covering Senator Al Gore, Sr.’s campaign in Tennessee and talked nearly daily for decades.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has sold a memoir to Doubleday. It will be interesting to see how this compares the biography being written by former Chronicle reporter Marc Sandalow.

The Power of Nonfiction

Garrison Keillor gave the keynote speech at the J. Anthony Lukas awards and it was so amazing the New York Observor decided to print it in its entirty. Here are a few excerpts, in which he lauds writers:

"Nonfiction has this power to turn our heads around and to really shake us. Books that come at our mythology and give us a clearer view of the world and so do such a great service for us. I do not know any movie that I’ve ever been to that really changed my mind about anything. I can’t think of a single song that did. And I don’t know–I could think about works of fiction. But for sure works of history and biography have."

I like this part, too:

"But I believe in writers. I believe that they are out there, and they are at work. Great entrepreneurs: I believe in ambitious writers who are not satisfied with being promising, who are not satisfied with making a small display of cleverness and intelligence, but who take on enormous subjects–the bigger the better. And they are at work–they are at work all over this city. And not only at universities, but in the reading room of the New York public library. They are at work in rooms in apartments, in basements in Brooklyn. They are everywhere: they are all across this country. They are in garages and they are in bedrooms in their parents’ homes and they are at work, grappling with enormous subjects. Some of them with contracts, some of them without. Some of them subsisting, but working toward an enormous, enormous good. They are at work at computers, with books stacked on the floor around them, and on tables, and notes: legal pads, scribbles here, index cards, post-it notes all over. A whole great beautiful chaos of material. And they are just trying to get the job done.

They’re working at this as you would work at any other difficult task. It’s like a major illness–having a book in the works. There are good days and bad days but you just keep going. You avoid the temptation of the telephone. You put off the e-mail until evening. The Internet–an enormous temptation, right there inside your computer. And all of this off–you stave this off. A straight act of character and dedication.

You try to keep a life going. You try to raise a child, or children. You try to be a spouse, you try to have friendships, and have social occasions.

People ask you, “How is the book coming?”

You say, “It’s comin’ great.” What else you going to say? You’re sick of it. You don’t want to talk about it.

Your editor, asks, “How’s the book coming?” And you say, Well, ahh, er...It’s coming slower than I thought it would....problems. But I’m hopeful–I’m still hopeful. I can’t make any promises, but I’m hopeful. And then it comes out, it actually comes out. And people ask you, “How does it feel? It must feel great.”

It doesn’t, actually. To your great surprise. You were thinking it might feel great. But it doesn’t. You feel of course a sense of relief. An enormous amount of time is now yours, which had been devoted to other things. And that’s confusing. And you feel a sense of disbelief in a way. But also a sort of grief–that this enormous thing has now moved on. What are you going to do with your life now?"

The Police Report on David Halberstam's death has been turned over to the San Mateo County District Attorney's office. Apparently, it doesn't conclude which party was at fault.

Meanwhile, his widow has been comforted by the thousands of condolences she has received. (via Romenseko)

David Halberstam Killed in Car Accident

I was driving around on my afternoon carpool duties when I heard that David Halberstam had been killed this morning in a car accident near the Dumbarton Bridge. Apparently, he was a passenger in a car driven by a student from the Berkeley School of Journalism, where he spoke Saturday night.

I am so shocked and saddened that Halberstam died this way, before his time. On Saturday he spoke enthusiastically about his forthcoming book on the Korean War. He said he had just signed a contract for two more books. He loved his work so much.

“It gets to be more fun the more you do it,” he told the audience at his last lecture.

After the lecture, Halberstam went to Chez Panisse with a group from the journalism school. The group talkedso long they shut the restaurant down, according to Orville Schell, the dean of the school and his host for the evening.

"No one wanted to leave," Schell told the Mercury News. `It was kind of like the last supper."

Halberstam covered Vietnam, which he characterized as a fiasco, and intimated that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a mistake of even greater proportions. He recommended to the young journalists at the speech to watch the great war film, “The Battle of Algiers.” I have never seen it, but now I will make a point to rent it.

Here is the New York Times story on his death, and here is the Chronicle’s. Here’s an interview with him.