What felt right to me was a story about a mood, or moods. I also knew that I didn’t want to do some kind of policy story with anecdotal illustration. I knew there wasn’t going to be a resolution to the story. Maybe a more interesting challenge was one of structure. I had to make the kinds of decisions I normally brood on very quickly, and I think the story reflects that sense of urgency. Instead, we did it all in about three sleepless weeks. Normally I’d like about a month for this phase, followed by a week to just stare at it all and think, then maybe a month to write, revise, let it simmer, and another long spell to work it all out with the editor. At the same time, I was deciphering my notes, following up by phone and Skype and library research. I hired students and young journalists to help me, and together we transcribed about 80,000 words in a week. I like to do most of my own transcribing, so I can hear conversations with plenty of time to pause and think about them, but with this schedule I needed help. Two weeks wasn’t a lot in Russia - I slept about four hours a night, trying to experience as much as I could - but even more crushing was the turnaround. I went to Russia for two weeks in early November and knew I’d have to file in December to get the story into the February issue, while the world was paying attention. What were the challenges particular to this assignment? I was interested in fear, and, of course, fear’s corollary, courage. In Russia, I wanted to know what it felt like to be on the wrong side of an official, state-sanctioned crusade, especially after things had been slowly improving for years. I don’t mean anti-gay! I mean that in Uganda, I’d really focused on the homophobes, what they believed and why they believed it and what it felt like to be consumed by hate. It felt like an opportunity to revisit these issues from the other side. But it had been a few years, and here was this important and fascinating story. (I’ve been reporting on hard-right movements for years.) They’re important, but they can poison you, and I felt pretty poisoned. Eric had read an earlier essay of mine for Harper’s, “ Straight Man’s Burden,” which is a report from Uganda on the men behind that country’s so-called “Kill the Gays” bill. After that, I told myself I wasn’t going to do that kind of story anymore. I like working with young editors, because they care about the story as much as you do. Enteo promotee full#This was his first full feature, I believe, and he’s since been promoted. Actually, he was assistant to the editor in chief, Jim Nelson. Jeff Sharlet: A young editor at GQ, Eric Sullivan, called and asked if I was interested. Storyboard: How did this story come to be? He took us through the piece line by line, covering big-picture questions as well as grace notes about craft. He worked on the story with support from the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute. Sharlet, author of the bestselling The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism in the Heart of American Power, C Street, and Sweet Heaven When I Die, is Mellon assistant professor of English at Dartmouth. The timing dovetailed with Human Rights Watch’s renewed admonition that Russia address the “deteriorating situation” of LGBT harassment and violence. Last week, on the eve of the Sochi Olympics, GQ published “Inside the Iron Closet,” a Jeff Sharlet story that revealed disturbing details about what it’s like to be gay in Russia.
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