MARFA — The Ocean is Closed: Journalistic Adventures and Investigations was released this week, reintroducing the writings of journalist Jon Bradshaw. The essential collection of writings sheds new light on a journalist who wrote about everything from poet W.H. Auden to a mafia murder of a journalist in Arizona. The late journalist was married to Marfa resident Carolyn Pfeiffer Bradshaw, who helped bring the book to fruition.
Bradshaw’s longform essays cover a range of subjects, “from poets and authors to mercenaries, terrorists and bandits,” Pfeiffer Bradshaw explained. “He was writing in a time of ‘new journalism,’ where everything became personalized.” That style was immersive, subjective and unconventional, and Bradshaw’s essays fit the description.
In the 25 years since his passing, print magazines have given way to online publications, leaving Bradshaw’s works tucked away in archives for decades. Pfeiffer Bradshaw wanted to help “get Bradshaw remembered,” she said. “Everything moves very very fast now, and those that didn’t quite make it to the digital age, there’s just no record of what they’ve done.”
Ze Books is publishing the collection, adding it as the third installation to a series of what the publishers call “literary mixtapes.” The book is well designed, featuring archival photos, creative layouts and plenty of eye-catching pull quotes dotting the pages throughout.
Michael Zilka of Ze Books was an old friend of Bradshaw’s, and asked Pfeiffer Bradshaw if he could publish the collection. “For a widow of a dead author, it just doesn’t happen,” she said. “Of course I said yes.”
To assemble the collection of works and images, Pfeiffer Bradshaw had to dig into her own storage. “The core of Bradshaw’s things, his diaries, his books, all these things, I’d kept them for his children.”
When the book finally was set to become a reality, Pfeiffer Bradshaw was able to throw herself into it wholesale. “Many of us have been confined during the pandemic, so having this book to work on all the time, it was a complete godsend,” she said.
“Sometimes it would make me a little sad,” the widow said, but putting together the book soon “became a very joyful thing to do.” Mary Lou Saxon took photos of the writing chair and the travel bag Pfeiffer Bradshaw had held on to for so long. Another Marfan, Jim Fissel, scanned all of the additional art. “We had our little Marfa team working,” Pfeiffer Bradshaw said.
Alongside the Marfa team, Pfeiffer Bradshaw and the publishers called on a huge name in the magazine world: Anna Wintour. The British-American journalist and longtime editor-In-chief of Vogue magazine had dated Bradshaw, Pfeiffer Bradshaw explained.
Now, Wintour will host the virtual launch event “to resurrect the work of the late, legendary journalist Jon Bradshaw.” Hosted by Books & Books online on March 23 at 6 p.m., it’s open to any who registers here: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/theoceanisclosed/register and will feature a panel of editors and writers along with a short reading by actor Julian Sands.
“Bradshaw was always interested in people that live on the fringe of society, outsiders, but there had to be a good yarn, a good story.” He was incisively talented at finding the story and extracting it for his readers.
The Ocean is Closed: Journalistic Adventures and Investigations was released March 16 and is available at https://www.zebooks.com/
