Storytelling for all ages

To Jonathan Eig, everyone’s a storyteller. Some just have more of a knack for it. Eig is one of those people.

Dubbed a “master storyteller” by none other than Ken Burns, he’s taken his writing skills to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and more. He’s published five non-fiction books on Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, Al Capone, birth control and Muhammad Ali. In 2020 he launched a children’s book series featuring elementary schooler Lola Jones and her famous pigtails, and he’s currently working on a biography of Martin Luther King Jr.

Now, Eig is in the spotlight for partnering with Burns as consulting producer on a new four-part documentary on Ali inspired by Eig’s biography. “Round 1” of Ali premiered last night on PBS, with “Round 2” scheduled to debut this evening.

I chatted with Eig about the new documentary, his foray into children’s nonfiction, and his approach to storytelling.
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What makes this documentary different from anything else created about Muhammad Ali?

Me! Sorry, that was me channeling Ali. See? I even made it rhyme. But, seriously, it’s the first documentary to tell Ali’s full life story. And because it has the benefit of perspective, and because it has the brilliant work of Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon, it’s so much more than a straightforward account. It has poetry. It’s stunningly beautiful. And, like so much of Ken’s work, it has the giant sweep of American history. Ali’s story teaches us so much about twentieth-century America.

What did you learn about storytelling from the documentary project?

For one thing, I learned how much music enriches a story. It’s magical. It’s also a good reminder that the writer — even when working with nothing but words on a page — needs to engage the reader’s senses, all five of them, as often as possible.

I learned a few good tricks about interviewing, too, from watching Sarah and Dave do long, deep, on-camera interviews. The amount of eye contact is intense. Their ability to remain silent is not only impressive but a useful reminder that most interviewers do too much talking. I know I’m guilty.

I also have a new appreciation for the storyteller as a director. As a journalist, I originally believed the storyteller should be invisible. I’ve changed my feeling about that. I don’t think the storyteller should be out front, but total invisibility is not required and probably not recommended. It’s OK to let the reader or viewer see your hand. The storyteller has a responsibility to find meaning, to make sense of a life, not merely to present a list of dates and names. The storyteller has to examine the evidence and then find the links and decisions, the trials and errors, the accidents and acts of bravery, the themes and patterns that mattered — and leave out the ones that didn’t.

The Lola Jones series is entirely different from anything you worked on before. What led you to try children’s fiction?

I loved reading books to my kids. It’s one of the joys of parenthood. And I’ve discovered many wonderful writers I’d missed when I was a kid. I’ve also learned a lot about writing from reading aloud. Along the way, my kids suggested to me that I try writing children’s books. It was never much of a priority to me.

Then one day I was making pigtails for my little girl, Lola. She was five at the time. We’d been reading Charlotte’s Web. So, I made a corny joke. I said, “Hey, these are some pigtails!” While she was in school, I thought it might be fun to write a story for Lola about a girl whose grumpy dad secretly enjoys making pigtails. I decided I would push myself to write a chapter every day and read it to her every night until it was done.

What is the biggest challenge you discovered in writing a children’s book?

The biggest challenge is keeping the kid inside you alive, not letting grownup BS ruin the stories. But that’s a challenge for life, not just literature.

You’ve written biographies about some of the most famous athletes in the world. How did the writing process differ for Lola Jones?

Biographies are 90% research, 10% writing. They take three to five years. They kill me. These children’s books, at least at first, were like a vacation. I sat down and made stuff up. I made silly jokes. I got them done in a few weeks.

But then my publisher wanted more. I had deadlines. They took me away from the MLK book, the biggest biography of my life and the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, and that started to irritate me a bit. But I’m still glad to have had the vacation. I’m still proud of how the little books turned out.

Best of all, I’m glad to have gone through the writing and editing process with my kids.