Anatomy of a McSweeney’s Piece: A One-Question Interview with Marco Kaye

Marco Kaye’s latest piece for McSweeney’s is “Two Years Later: The Geese Respond to the So-Called ‘Miracle on the Hudson.’

I love the images and the language in Marco’s piece, Etienne’s memory of the sawgrass and the marsh reeds rushing underneath on her first flight, and the line, “If they both didn’t yaw down, the force of the water could have snapped their necks.” I also love how Marco built the structure on the narrative of the US Airways emergency landing on the Hudson. But I was most impressed with the details. How did he get them to be so perfect? Marco and I happened to be e-mailing, so I asked him, “Did you do some research for this, or do you know this much about Canada Geese?”

He gave me permission to post his response here:

My favorite quote of the day is “Do you know this much about Canada Geese?”

I picture you saying this to me in my living room, and me opening a door to a taxidermy collection of Canadian Geese heretofore unseen in this world.

I did a little bit of reading for this piece. Some on the geese but most on the actual flight. I skimmed Sullenberger’s account of it, which was pretty riveting. And this other book called “Fly By Wire.” I didn’t read the whole thing, just the parts I needed.

I always like doing research. I feel like if a piece goes wrong, I still have gained that knowledge…even if there is no other practical application for it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Babel short story “You Must Know Everything.” That wonderful line yelled by the Grandmother, “Study and you can have everything—wealth and glory. You must know everything. Everyone will fall on their knees before you and bow to you. Let them envy you.”

Ha! What a great line! It’s so overwhelming though, right? I definitely try not to get overwhelmed by research, so I have this method where I’ll start writing something WHILE I’m reading. I bet people do this all the time, but I feel like it really helps me.

So there you have it. You must know everything (about geese)!