Despite the recurrence of events in which the debris-basin system fails in its struggle to contain the falling mountains, people who live on the front line are for the most part calm and complacent. It appears that no amount of front-page or prime-time attention will ever prevent such people from masking out the problem.

But some of McPhee's most memorable work describes people who work out of the limelight: a builder of birch bark canoes (Henri Vaillancourt) a bush pilot and a French-speaking wine maker in the Swiss army. One of his roommates at Princeton was 1951 Heisman Trophy winner Dick Kazmaier. John Angus McPhee (born March 8 1931) is an American writer widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction.

McPhee avoided the streams of consciousness of Wolfe and Thompson but detailed description of characters and appetite for details make his writing lively and personal even when it focuses on obscure or difficult topics. John Angus McPhee (born March 8 1931) is an American writer widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. "
Unlike Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson who helped kick-start the "new journalism" in the 1960s McPhee produced a gentler literary style of journalism by incorporating techniques from fiction.