Joseph Mitchell: “He listened to everyone, even those who were crazy, as if they were sane.”

From The Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of  Joseph Mitchell—he was a writer for The New Yorker for many years. His stories focused on people living on the fringe in New York City. They featured Roma, alcoholics, the homeless, fishmongers, and a band of Mohawk American Indians who worked as riveters on skyscrapers and bridges and had no fear of heights.

Much of his journalism is included in the book Up in the Old Hotel (1992). While at The New Yorker, Joseph Mitchell interviewed criminals, evangelists, politicians, and celebrities. He said that he was a good interviewer because he had lost the ability to detect insanity. He listened to everyone, even those who were crazy, as if they were sane. He said, “The best talk is artless, the talk of people trying to reassure or comfort themselves.”

Mitchell published his last book in 1965, Joe Gould’s Secret, about a man who said that he learned the language of seagulls and was now writing the longest book in the world. For the next 30 years, Mitchell kept going to his New Yorker office without publishing another word.