By Mike Mastromatteo
TORONTO (CNS) — Veteran New York Times reporter and columnist Dan Barry is thinking of making the leap from writing nonfiction narratives to novelist. But if pure fiction is to come, it doubtless will feature no shortage of real-life infused parables.
The author of three compilations of New York Times columns and reporting (“City Lights,” 2007; “The Boys in the Bunkhouse,” 2016; and “This Land,” 2018), Barry’s writing often highlights the struggles and quiet triumphs of the marginalized and the easily forgotten. In its own way, the prose also reflects the influence of Barry’s Catholic-Franciscan upbringing.
“I would say the liturgical language I was exposed to informs the rhythms of my language. The symbolism is ever-present, though I try not to overdo the references. And my sensibility, if I have one, is quite close to the Franciscan ideals I absorbed in high school and in college. Without getting too grand — and therefore anti-Franciscan — about it, I am drawn to the ability of journalism to give voice to the voiceless.”
Over his 30 years of reporting at The New York Times, the Journal Inquirer (Manchester, Connecticut), and the Providence Journal (Rhode Island), Barry has drawn attention as a storyteller who writes with insight and humility about ordinary, everyday people and events.
“The Boys in the Bunkhouse,” for example, describes the years of exploitation and abuse of intellectually disabled poultry industry workers in a small Iowa community. In the acknowledgements of this stark but touching story, Barry gives a hint into what the experience meant to the writer: “I want to thank the men — not the boys, but the men — of the bunkhouse. I have learned so much more from them than they might have learned from me. I have learned about grace.”
Giving voice to the voiceless is an unmistakable element of the life observations Barry spins into compelling reads. Consider this excerpt from a “City Lights” item about a New York priest’s effort to baptize a newborn discovered in the now-demolished Our Lady of Loreto Parish in Brooklyn.
“Father Fredy A. Rosales of Our Lady of Loreto Parish baptizes an infant left abandoned in the church (in the hospital, with holy water from a disposable cup). Nurses relented in allowing him in-person contact.
“Who knows what awaits the Infant of Our Lady of Loreto — whether the name Fredy Alfred will stick, whether the birth mother will resurface. All we know is that he was born on April Fool’s Day, was baptized during Holy Week, and is a child of this city.”
Barry’s 2011 work “Bottom of the 33rd” is a reportorial wonder in describing, 30 years after the fact, the mystique around the longest professional baseball game ever played. The Class AAA International League game between the Pawtucket (Rhode Island) Red Sox and the Rochester (New York) Red Wings on April 18-19 (Holy Saturday), 1981, is sprinkled with references any Catholic reader would appreciate. As the game drags on, Barry speculates as to the motivations of players, game officials and fans in the grandstand. “Why did you keep playing? Why did you stay?” the author asks. “Because we are bound by duty. Because we aspire to greater things. Because we are loyal. Because, in our own secular way, we are celebrating communion, resurrection and possibility.”
Barry, who shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting at the Providence Journal, crisscrossed the U.S. in search of material for “This Land.” Among the wide-ranging life stories he recorded on the tour is a tale of mass murder Jeffrey Dahmer’s desire to be baptized into a Christian faith community.
“I’m certainly drawn to stories of redemption and forgiveness,” Barry told Catholic News Service. “They address the central tension of the human condition, I think. We inevitably screw up, or we are inevitably screwed. It’s how we respond to that moment of personal failure or tragedy that provides a story’s narrative tension. In the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, here was, for many people, the embodiment of evil. Then he decides that he wants to be baptized. Interesting enough. But who will baptize him? As the story explains, many ministers declined the opportunity. And then this one minister, in rural Wisconsin, said: ‘Yes.'”
Much of Barry’s attitude to “Catholic” writing is explained in his 2004 memoir, “Pull Me Up.” There he relates how his “vocation” as a journalist stemmed from his interest in standing up for the underdog and an inherent distrust of power and authority. He also discusses how his mother’s death and his own thoughts of mortality, by way of a cancer diagnosis, engendered a new attitude about prayer and faith.
“I knew I had uttered this prayer (Our Father) thousands of times, during classroom rosaries chanted during Masses at St. Cyril’s, at St. Anthony’s, at St. Bonaventure, and I had recited it always in a kind of street-corner singsong. Now I would parse the words for meaning.”
Through all that he has lived and observed, Barry retains a special gift to finding compelling story material not visible at first glance. He remains committed to his questioning of authority, even as it regards his Catholic faith.
“I wouldn’t call any parish home at this moment,” he told CNS. “Like many Catholics, I am struggling with this moment in my faith. I have written about the sex scandal, including in my memoir, when recalling my experiences at an all-boys Catholic high school. At the moment, I occasionally attend Mass at St. Joseph’s Church in Maplewood, N.J., where, on Sunday mornings, I also play basketball in the adjacent gymnasium.”
So what’s next for this reporter whose narrative prose subtly challenges readers to consider ways of extending the kingdom of God on earth? Perhaps fiction is in the offing.
“Several of my friends, including the great writer Colum McCann, have urged me in the past to try fiction. ‘Dared’ might be a better word,” Barry said. “And I’ll sheepishly admit to having flirted with the notion. But so far, at least, I have found working in the field of narrative nonfiction more my style. This may be a slick way of simply saying I’m afraid of trying fiction, though I may summon the nerve someday still.”
Mastromatteo is a Toronto writer and editor.