Nieman Storyboard

When Patrick Radden Keefe finds a story, he doesn’t let go. He talks to every person until there’s no one left to talk to. He looks for documents and evidence to verify claims. He spends enormous amounts of time on story structure. But, he admits, he’s somewhat of “a dilettante”: while he wants to know everything there is to know about a topic, he also wants the ability to walk away from it once the work is done.

I don’t like to say that I’ve been to Mexico. It’s not a lie – I have spent a small amount of time on Mexican soil. But it’s a statement that feels empty; it doesn’t contain any useful, meaningful truth. I’ve never been one to get hung up on notions of authenticity when I travel. A place is a place, whether it provides a challenging dose of “foreign culture” or not. But to describe my booze-addled, blurry, all-inclusive week in Acapulco by saying that “I’ve been to Mexico”?

On the other end of the line my mother’s phone was ringing, but the familiar tones sounded distant, thin and faded. When she picked up and said “Hello?” her voice could have been coming through a child’s tin-can telephone. I held the satellite phone tight against my ear and tried to stand as still as possible, double-checked that the antenna was pointed skyward, to the circling celestial bodies that made it function. Our conversation was brief, and stilted by a long delay on the line.