Two Drinks with . . . The New Yorker’s Master Wordsmith

Is it possible to gush so much over the person you’re interviewing that you embarrass yourself? I believe it is. In fact, I believe that’s what I did earlier this week when I spoke with Rachel Aviv. And there wasn’t even any booze involved.

As someone who has spent much of his career writing for magazines, I pay a lot of attention to magazine bylines; there are certain writers I’ll drop everything to read. When I was a young pup, trying to learn from the best, Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese, and Nora Ephron were at the top of my list. Today, it’s Rachel Aviv. There’s not even a close second.

Aviv, who is 44, has been writing magazine articles for The New Yorker for the past 16 years, and I regularly find myself gobsmacked when I read one of her stories. The clarity and simplicity of her prose reminds me of Susan Sheehan, whose 1982 book about a woman with schizophrenia, Is There No Place on Earth for Me?, is considered a nonfiction classic. And the psychological acuity of her work calls to mind the great Janet Malcolm, who wrote memorable works about Sylvia Plath’s husband, the writer Joe McGinniss, and, indeed, a feud over the value of psychiatry itself (In the Freud Archives).

Did I toss away my professional cred within the first five minutes of the interview and tell Aviv I had her on the same pedestal as Sheehan and Malcolm? I did. “Thank you,” she said, blushing slightly while waiting for me to say something a bit less breathless.