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David Samuels | |
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| Born | David Samuels Brooklyn, New York |
| Occupation | Non-fiction writer, journalist |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1967–present |
| Notable works | Only Love Can Break Your Heart (2008) The Runner (2008) |
| Children | Ben, Susannah, and Elijah |
David Samuels (born 1967) is an American non-fiction and fiction writer. He is the editor ofCounty Highway, a magazine in the form of a 19th-century American broadsheet which he founded withWalter Kirn.[1] He is a contributing writer atThe New York Times Magazine, a longtimecontributing editor atHarper's Magazine; a contributor toThe Atlantic,[2]N+1,[3]The New Yorker[4] and other magazines; and the literary editor ofTablet.[5]
Samuels grew up inBrooklyn, New York. In 1989, he graduated with a BA degree in history fromHarvard College, where he was an editor of theHarvard Lampoon. He became aMellon Fellow in the Humanities atPrinceton University, where he received a master's degree in history in 1993.
Samuels' first article to receive much public attention was a controversial 1991cover story onrap music inThe New Republic; the piece contended that the primary hip-hop audience consisted of white suburban teens and has been widelyanthologized. A article he wrote later about rap music forThe New Yorker was reprinted in theBest Music Writing of 2000 collection, edited byPeter Guralnick. His writing has also been anthologized inBest American Political Writing of 2004,Best American Science and Nature Writing of 2006, and other collections.[6]
Samuels was a contributing editor atHarper's Magazine from 1996 to 2018; he has written over a dozen features forThe New Yorker. His articles have been cover stories forThe Atlantic and theNew York Times Magazine. His work is a throwback to theNew Journalism of the 1960s—a blend of first-person observation, detailed reporting, and a careful attention to language. His pieces forHarper's are often panoramic takes on a single event including the demolition of theSands Hotel and Casino inLas Vegas,[7] the riot atWoodstock 1999,[8] aDonald Rumsfeld press conference atthe Pentagon,[9] andSuper Bowl XL inDetroit.[10] His features forThe New Yorker andThe Atlantic often focus on extreme subcultures and individuals with double identities. He was a finalist for theNational Magazine Award in reporting for his long profile article ofYasser Arafat forThe Atlantic in September 2005 and it was named as one of the three most important articles of the year byDavid Brooks, a columnist inThe New York Times.[11] After publishing a controversial cover story inThe Atlantic's April 2008 issue aboutpaparazzi who trailBritney Spears, Samuels appeared onNPR'sOn the Media and apologized for hurting the feelings of those subscribers who objected to finding Spears on the cover of the magazine. "Yes, I want to take full responsibility for destroyingThe Atlantic, (an)150-year-old pillar of American journalism," he said. "... now it's gone, thanks to me."[12]
To open his long profile of the rapperKanye West titled "American Mozart" in the May 2012 issue ofThe Atlantic, Samuels told of meeting PresidentBarack Obama at a fundraiser at theManhattan restaurantDaniel and asking him who he liked better–West or hisWatch the Throne collaboratorJay-Z. Obama said that he preferred Jay-Z, but he thought that West was "smart" and "very talented." When Samuels recalled that Obama had previously called West a "jackass," Obama replied "He is a jackass. But he's talented". An angry minority ofAtlantic subscribers wrote to the magazine to express their bafflement at the comparison of West withMozart.[1]
In the April 12, 2010 issue ofThe New Yorker, Samuels published an account of his contacts with thePink Panthers, a group of jewel thieves fromSerbia andMontenegro who have reportedly stolen watches and jewels worth an estimated $250 million. The article, entitled "The Pink Panthers," was an idiosyncratic travelogue which detailed the group's cinematic robberies against the backdrop of recentBalkan history. The style of the Panthers piece got Samuels a rebuke from Pietry Calcaterra–the chief ofInterpol's Pink Panthers unit–who wrote a letter of complaint toThe New Yorker saying, "The victim is not the man wielding the gun, however colourful his alleged derring-do. The victim in an armed robbery is the person lying on a shop floor with a gun pointed at his head."[2]
His immersive profile of White House speechwriter and deputy National Security advisor Ben Rhodes, published in the May 8, 2016 issue ofThe New York Times Magazine examined the use of traditional narrative techniques in the making and selling of American foreign policy in the age of social media. The article ignited a firestorm in the digital press, which was harshly criticized in the article by both Rhodes and Samuels, leading to an unusual response by Samuels to his critics in the pages of the Times titled "Through the Looking Glass With Ben Rhodes[3]." On August 20, 2019, Samuels published a highly personal account of an encounter with the musicianNeil Young inThe New York Times Magazine in which the writer described his youngest son's struggle with asensory processing disorder.[13]
In the spring of 2008, Samuels publishedOnly Love Can Break Your Heart—a collection of his journalism—along withThe Runner: A True Account of the Amazing Lies and Fantastical Adventures of the Ivy League Impostor James Hogue. The latter was based on his 2001 profile of the universityconfidence manJames Hogue, inThe New Yorker.
In 2015, a French translation of "The Runner" was published under the title "Mentir A Perdre Haleine".[4] In 2018, Samuels published a double-sided French language collection of two decades of his journalism, "Seul L'Amour Peut Te Briser Le Coeur,"[5], which received laudatory coverage[6] in the French press, who dubbed Samuels the inventor of "neo-gonzo journalism"[7] .
InThe New York Observer, critic Matt Haber called Samuels "a master of the new old journalism."[14] In the same publication, critic Michael Washburn said Samuels' work inThe Runner andOnly Love is "thrilling"; "With an intelligence and unsparing lucidity reminiscent ofJoan Didion, Mr. Samuels has written some of the best long-form literary journalism of the past decade."[15] A critic, John Palattella, wrote in a long review essay inThe Nation that Samuels' achievement was "staggering" comparing his work favorably to Didion andTom Wolfe: "Like Didion, Samuels investigates the vortex of American life, a feeling of weightlessness and existential drift that can swallow people whole, but he reports on it in an entirely different manner."[16]
ReviewingThe Runner forThe New York Times,Keith Gessen wrote "Samuels is an elite narrative journalist, a master at teasing out the social and moral implications of the smallest small talk."[17] Writing separately in the same publication aboutOnly Love Can Break Your Heart, Jascha Hoffman described the collection as "a tribute to the twin American traditions of self-invention and self-deceit" and the author as "a brilliant reporter who has made a career of observing 'our national gift for self-delusion and for making ourselves up from scratch.'"[18] In theLos Angeles Times, critic Richard Rayner cited the author's "wonderful feeling for the weirdness and truths of self-contained worlds". Rayner continued, "the writing isJoseph Mitchell-meets-Elmore Leonard, and a whole subculture comes to life... Samuels is heir to an American tradition."[19]
InThe Village Voice,James Hannaham wrote Samuels "has nearly (an) autistic command of minor details and facts" and "achieves the glorious breadth and detail of a mural painter."[20] Contrary to most critics, Hannahan preferred Samuels' bookThe Runner to his collected journalism inOnly Love Can Break Your Heart, calling the book "terse, passionate and complicated" and criticizing Samuels' political writing for "a creepy lack of bias."
