Mike Sager
October 11th, 2007 by David Lee Simmons in Arts, Books & Readings
Mike Sager’s “literary anthropology” approach to narrative journalism stands on the shoulders of Hunter S. Thompson and Gay Talese. Revenge of the Donut Boys: True Stories of Lust, Fame, Survival and Multiple Personality, a collection of his magazine articles, includes profiles of Ice Cube, Mark Cuban and the Newark, N.J., car thieves of the book’s title.
How did you get your start at the Washington Post? I worked at night and sort of the first few months started taking everything in and then started to freelance. I would come in during the day in my three-piece plaid interview suit left over from college … then I’d go home back to Arlington and change into my T-shirt collection and jeans and come back at night and do the 7-at-night-till-3 shift. It was such a psychological battle that people were saying, “Oh, your brother was here.” … I was doing story after story. [Bob] Woodward was the editor of Metro at the time, so I was constantly up his butt and everyone else’s butt to get in there. I took a tip over the phone and just went and did it myself. And it turned out to be this Senate investigation. I guess that was finally the thing that Woodward could relate to.
David Lee Simmons speaks with Sager and the author reads from Revenge of the Donut Boys - Download.
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