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52 McGs.: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Reporter Robert McG. Thomas
Among his devoted fans, his pieces were known simply as McGs. With a "genius for illuminating that sometimes ephemeral apogee in people's lives when they prove capable of generating a brightly burning spark" (Columbia Journalism Review), Robert McG. Thomas Jr. commemorated fascinating, unconventional lives with signature style and wit.
The New York Times received countless letters over the years from readers moved to tears or laughter by a McG. Eschewing traditionally famous subjects, Thomas favored unsung heroes, eccentrics, and underachievers, Edward Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter ("Cat Owner's Best Friend"); Angelo Zuccotti, the bouncer at El Morocco ("Artist of the Velvet Rope"); and Kay Halle, a glamorous Cleveland department store heiress who received sixty-four marriage proposals ("An Intimate of Century's Giants"). In one of his classic obituaries, Thomas described Anton Rosenberg as a "storied sometime artist and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950's cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything." Thomas captured life's ironies and defining moments with elegance and a gift for making a sentence sing. He had an uncanny sense of the passion and personality that make each life unique, and the ability, as Joseph Epstein wrote, to "look beyond the facts and the rigid formula of the obit to touch on a deeper truth."
Compiled by Chris Calhoun, one of Thomas's most dedicated readers, and with a fittingly sharp introduction from acclaimed novelist and critic Thomas Mallon, 52 McGs. will win legions of new fans to the masterful writer who transformed the obituary into an art form.
The New York Times received countless letters over the years from readers moved to tears or laughter by a McG. Eschewing traditionally famous subjects, Thomas favored unsung heroes, eccentrics, and underachievers, Edward Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter ("Cat Owner's Best Friend"); Angelo Zuccotti, the bouncer at El Morocco ("Artist of the Velvet Rope"); and Kay Halle, a glamorous Cleveland department store heiress who received sixty-four marriage proposals ("An Intimate of Century's Giants"). In one of his classic obituaries, Thomas described Anton Rosenberg as a "storied sometime artist and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950's cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything." Thomas captured life's ironies and defining moments with elegance and a gift for making a sentence sing. He had an uncanny sense of the passion and personality that make each life unique, and the ability, as Joseph Epstein wrote, to "look beyond the facts and the rigid formula of the obit to touch on a deeper truth."
Compiled by Chris Calhoun, one of Thomas's most dedicated readers, and with a fittingly sharp introduction from acclaimed novelist and critic Thomas Mallon, 52 McGs. will win legions of new fans to the masterful writer who transformed the obituary into an art form.
192 pages, Paperback
First published October 23, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 29, 2025
Perhaps it's because I'm getting older, but the first thing I turn to in the morning when I read The New York Times - with the possible exception of the crossword puzzle - is the obituary page. Unfortunately, no one writing obituaries for The Times today is the equal of Robert McG. Thomas Jr.
Robert McG. Thomas Jr. was a master of writing obituaries, and came to that specialty late in his newspaper career.
Thomas was the master of the hook * (I don't know if that's what it's called in the newspaper world, but that's what I call it) - a lead sentence or two that would grab his readers and not let them stop reading until they'd finished reading the entire obituary. Consider:
"Anton Rosenberg, a storied sometime artist and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950's cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything, died on feb. 14 at a hospital near his home in Woodstock, N.Y."
or
"The Rev. Louis A Saunders, who spent half a century as such a quietly dedicated minister, missionary and religious official that he became known chiefly for a single, instinctive act of Christian duty, died on April 5 at his home in suburban Dallas. He was 88 and the man who gave Lee Harvey Oswald a Christian burial."
Or, if you want to read the obituary of Edgar Nollner, who traveled by dog sled in 1925 across Alaska with a supply of serum to save the 1,429 residents of Nome from the ravagages of diptheria while the nation followed through radio broadcasts and newspaper headlines, you'll find it here.
If you want to read the obituary of Emil Sitka, the favorite foil of the Three Stooges, you'll find it here.
As the title implies, there are 52 obituaries written by Robert McG. Thomas Jr. in this book, so you can read one every week for a year, or a few at a time, or all at once, as you choose. However you read them, you'll probably come back and reread them over time.
Oh - I should mention that there are actually 53 obituaries in this book. The 53rd is the obituary of Robert McG. Thomas Jr. as it appeared in The Times on January 8, 2000, after his passing. He didn't write it and it's not quite as good as any of the obituaries he wrote. That's as it should be.
Update - Rereading some of the pieces in this collection (there are many more good ones than I'd remembered), I thought about how an obituary should be more than a memorial to a person's life. Ideally, it should be a celebration of a life. Even an "average person" (which includes most of us in some sense or another) has had moments and stories that deserve to be remembered, celebrated, and passed on. Robert McG. Thomas Jr. knew this. Most of the people he eulogized had a bright moment in their lives that perhaps the "average person" hasn't had, but all of us have had some sort of special moment or story which should be celebrated.
While I was reading, I thought about "The Man Who Picked the Wildwood Flower", a song that Merle Haggard recorded which touches on all of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Fv3...
* - edit - I've since learned that what's called a hook in popular music is called the lede in the newspaper business. I think that hook is a better and more expressive word, but it's not my world, so lede it is.
Robert McG. Thomas Jr. was a master of writing obituaries, and came to that specialty late in his newspaper career.
Thomas was the master of the hook * (I don't know if that's what it's called in the newspaper world, but that's what I call it) - a lead sentence or two that would grab his readers and not let them stop reading until they'd finished reading the entire obituary. Consider:
"Anton Rosenberg, a storied sometime artist and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950's cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything, died on feb. 14 at a hospital near his home in Woodstock, N.Y."
or
"The Rev. Louis A Saunders, who spent half a century as such a quietly dedicated minister, missionary and religious official that he became known chiefly for a single, instinctive act of Christian duty, died on April 5 at his home in suburban Dallas. He was 88 and the man who gave Lee Harvey Oswald a Christian burial."
Or, if you want to read the obituary of Edgar Nollner, who traveled by dog sled in 1925 across Alaska with a supply of serum to save the 1,429 residents of Nome from the ravagages of diptheria while the nation followed through radio broadcasts and newspaper headlines, you'll find it here.
If you want to read the obituary of Emil Sitka, the favorite foil of the Three Stooges, you'll find it here.
As the title implies, there are 52 obituaries written by Robert McG. Thomas Jr. in this book, so you can read one every week for a year, or a few at a time, or all at once, as you choose. However you read them, you'll probably come back and reread them over time.
Oh - I should mention that there are actually 53 obituaries in this book. The 53rd is the obituary of Robert McG. Thomas Jr. as it appeared in The Times on January 8, 2000, after his passing. He didn't write it and it's not quite as good as any of the obituaries he wrote. That's as it should be.
Update - Rereading some of the pieces in this collection (there are many more good ones than I'd remembered), I thought about how an obituary should be more than a memorial to a person's life. Ideally, it should be a celebration of a life. Even an "average person" (which includes most of us in some sense or another) has had moments and stories that deserve to be remembered, celebrated, and passed on. Robert McG. Thomas Jr. knew this. Most of the people he eulogized had a bright moment in their lives that perhaps the "average person" hasn't had, but all of us have had some sort of special moment or story which should be celebrated.
While I was reading, I thought about "The Man Who Picked the Wildwood Flower", a song that Merle Haggard recorded which touches on all of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Fv3...
* - edit - I've since learned that what's called a hook in popular music is called the lede in the newspaper business. I think that hook is a better and more expressive word, but it's not my world, so lede it is.
February 6, 2012
I think Thomas pays a service that is often overlooked in our society.. memorial and legacy. Obituaries are often cut and paste activities without any true essence of the person they are summarizing. Their story should be told with the same gusto they had for life. Thomas accomplishes this, and it is why he was widely regarded and read.
February 3, 2016
This was a treat to read and I learned lots about the art of distilling an entire life into just a few hundred words. Some tips I'll take straight from the introduction: "every lead was the subject's life," "in a genre that requires cramming, he never seems rushed," "beautifully alert to verbs," "wrote as if he'd never heard of an exclamation point, let alone thought of using one," and "never condescends, especially to the kind."
By far my favourite obit was for Francine Katzenbogen, the "Brooklyn-born lottery millionaire" who "loved cats rather more than was good for her." (She died of a chronic asthma condition worsened by allergic reactions to her many cats.) He writes about oddballs best but with a respectful tone that never flirts with mockery.
Leads, especially ones that deviated from form, are stellar. Like this one for Charles McCartney:
"You take a fellow who looks like a goat, travels around with goats, eats with goats, lies down among goats and smells like a goat and it won't be long before people will be calling him the Goat Man." Who wouldn't keep reading?
He also masterfully includes little details that tell you so much about someone's personality without relying on adjectives. Eg: "owned one dress" or "Mr. Wanderone, who once said he never picked up anything heavier than a silver dollar, grew up with a fierce aversion to physical labor, so much so that on their cross-country trips his wife was expected to do all the driving, carry all the luggage and even change the flat tires."
By far my favourite obit was for Francine Katzenbogen, the "Brooklyn-born lottery millionaire" who "loved cats rather more than was good for her." (She died of a chronic asthma condition worsened by allergic reactions to her many cats.) He writes about oddballs best but with a respectful tone that never flirts with mockery.
Leads, especially ones that deviated from form, are stellar. Like this one for Charles McCartney:
"You take a fellow who looks like a goat, travels around with goats, eats with goats, lies down among goats and smells like a goat and it won't be long before people will be calling him the Goat Man." Who wouldn't keep reading?
He also masterfully includes little details that tell you so much about someone's personality without relying on adjectives. Eg: "owned one dress" or "Mr. Wanderone, who once said he never picked up anything heavier than a silver dollar, grew up with a fierce aversion to physical labor, so much so that on their cross-country trips his wife was expected to do all the driving, carry all the luggage and even change the flat tires."
July 18, 2020
The only regrettable part of this book is that it is not the complete work of Robert McG. Thomas Jr. In the right hands an obituary can be a thing a beauty. In the wrong hands an obituary can be an insult to a life lived. Thomas Jr. might be the best obituary writer I have ever had the pleasure of reading. An odd compliment, but not a hyperbolic one.
These are nor "normal" obituaries about "normal" people. Yes, there are some famous folks in this book, but the majority a short, but detailed looks at lives and people we would otherwise no nothing about. This is as much a research book as it is a group of finely written obits.
These are nor "normal" obituaries about "normal" people. Yes, there are some famous folks in this book, but the majority a short, but detailed looks at lives and people we would otherwise no nothing about. This is as much a research book as it is a group of finely written obits.
February 8, 2022
I found this book discounted on BookOutlet; this is my honest review.
-52 short stories of ~3-4 pages long, great for in-betweens, waiting time, etc.
-I enjoyed every minute of it. These are real-life obits written by a reporter of the NY Times. As I read along, I thought it would have been nice to have him write something similar for my husband (when came the time) but alas, such are dreams.
-Sidney Grossman: I remember seeing a picture somewhere of a proud man showing the house he built for his family that came in a package with instructions; it was a Grossman.
-Hallie C. Stillwell: "The hands, miffed enough, ... were not about to let a woman meddle in the manly work of cowboy cooking." But they didn't mind her wrestling the calves for branding, which they considered "ladylike". LOL.
-Marguerite Young: It took her 18 years to write a 1198-page novel, for which everyone said it was a masterpiece, but without anyone quite finishing it and she took another 10 years to write someone's bio of 2500 pages - the publisher is still working on it...
-Maurice Sagoff: A master of terse verses indeed. Alice in Wonderland abbreviated: "Holed up with bunny. Pre-teen acts funny. Aberrations. Hallucinations. Wild Scenes. Tarts. Queens. Clearly, she needs therapy". He published a book, Shrinklits, full of those.
-Robert Saudek: For sure I would have enjoyed his show.
-J. Edward Day: His qualifications to be in Kennedy's Top Administration, according to him, were: "I went to Harvard, I served in the Navy and my wife went to Vassar". (eye roll here).
-David Longaberger: I enjoyed all the pictures included, but none quite like the basket building.
-52 short stories of ~3-4 pages long, great for in-betweens, waiting time, etc.
-I enjoyed every minute of it. These are real-life obits written by a reporter of the NY Times. As I read along, I thought it would have been nice to have him write something similar for my husband (when came the time) but alas, such are dreams.
-Sidney Grossman: I remember seeing a picture somewhere of a proud man showing the house he built for his family that came in a package with instructions; it was a Grossman.
-Hallie C. Stillwell: "The hands, miffed enough, ... were not about to let a woman meddle in the manly work of cowboy cooking." But they didn't mind her wrestling the calves for branding, which they considered "ladylike". LOL.
-Marguerite Young: It took her 18 years to write a 1198-page novel, for which everyone said it was a masterpiece, but without anyone quite finishing it and she took another 10 years to write someone's bio of 2500 pages - the publisher is still working on it...
-Maurice Sagoff: A master of terse verses indeed. Alice in Wonderland abbreviated: "Holed up with bunny. Pre-teen acts funny. Aberrations. Hallucinations. Wild Scenes. Tarts. Queens. Clearly, she needs therapy". He published a book, Shrinklits, full of those.
-Robert Saudek: For sure I would have enjoyed his show.
-J. Edward Day: His qualifications to be in Kennedy's Top Administration, according to him, were: "I went to Harvard, I served in the Navy and my wife went to Vassar". (eye roll here).
-David Longaberger: I enjoyed all the pictures included, but none quite like the basket building.
March 18, 2019
Keep in mind that everybody has their own definition of “the best” and my definition and the author’s is not the same. I was expecting/hoping for humorous obituaries and there were several that were interesting, educational, and yes some had some funny parts. But this is more a collection of obituaries if notable people, not necessarily funny writing. Either way, you will enjoy enough out of this collection that reading it is worth it.
June 20, 2019
I love reading an obituary and having to look up some of the words. The people he wrote about were unusual, or had done unusual things. He had a way with words, and wrote not just about the facts of a person's life, but about their personality. He managed to write clever, and often funny, obituaries.
June 11, 2022
Laugh out loud Obituaries???
McG, as fans called him, wrote the funniest, most creative obits in the world —-at least that’s what I think based on limited knowledge. His wit and attention to detail sometimes were just a cover for deeper intent and meaning. It’s a great experience for the reader.
McG, as fans called him, wrote the funniest, most creative obits in the world —-at least that’s what I think based on limited knowledge. His wit and attention to detail sometimes were just a cover for deeper intent and meaning. It’s a great experience for the reader.
November 21, 2018
The obituaries alternate between being exceedingly clever and insightful and a bit boring. But which is which probably depends on the reader’s mood at the time of reading. Hin: Don’t readbthem all at once.
August 25, 2019
This is a great book I absentmindedly picked up at Re-Books in Waterville, ME. A really enjoyable read! I learned a lot about the famous and the infamous, and the writing style is wonderfully honest and entertaining.
December 31, 2018
Inspiring!
December 1, 2009
OK, so this is the first book that I've marked as read that I didn't finish. This is a collection of 52 obituaries written by the New York Times' legendary obit writer, Robert McG. Thomas. I wanted to like this book. When I was a more dedicated newspaper reader, I scanned the obits every day, looking for the ones with unanswered questions hidden in the sparse facts, or the few that let the subject's quirky character flourish. At its best, this book is a survey of 20th Century Americana--tales of writers, socialites, magnates, and inventors who brought us items once novel and now found in every household. But his understated style never varies, and after a few dozen, you've had enough. I wanted to be moved by Thomas's own obit; he died relatively young, and was hailed in his former employer's pages by his peers. But by the time I had read 40 or so, they all seemed the same. It is humbling to know we will all be reduced to 200-750 words, if we get that. What event in our lives will spark the writer, what bon mot, what eccentricity? We don't get to choose. There is always a greater force, an editor larger than ourselves, ultimately in control of our destiny.
January 19, 2012
Yes, McG. was the master. Including the best opening line for an obituary ever: "Anton Rosenberg, a storied sometime artists and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950s cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything, died on Feb. 14 at a hospital near his home in Woodstock, N.Y." I happen to be very much into obituaries, but even for those who are not, who just appreciate Americana and great writing, this is highly recommended.
January 2, 2022
This is an excellent book. It made me want to read the New York Times obituary section regularly. I loved how all of the obituaries in this collection were of amazing people, but I had never heard of any of them.
Several of the obituaries made me get a little teary. A few of them made me laugh, but mostly, I was just impressed by all of the interesting lives people have lived.
My only negative comment is that maybe this book could have been 44 McGs. I don't know which obituaries I would have left out, but by the end of the book I was getting a little bored by the formula.
Several of the obituaries made me get a little teary. A few of them made me laugh, but mostly, I was just impressed by all of the interesting lives people have lived.
My only negative comment is that maybe this book could have been 44 McGs. I don't know which obituaries I would have left out, but by the end of the book I was getting a little bored by the formula.
December 29, 2008
OK...let me pre-empt. My darkside does lead me to the Valley & State section of the paper to read the latest. I don't know why...I just do. I am fascinated and I want to read the good in people. I always look for the hidden meanings ie: determination = stubborness, etc. etc.
Onto the book, these are the best kind of obituaries that go into detail. I wish modern day obits were like this. The book is essentially short stories, but fantastic! I wish I could read more.
Onto the book, these are the best kind of obituaries that go into detail. I wish modern day obits were like this. The book is essentially short stories, but fantastic! I wish I could read more.
May 19, 2011
so far so good, this is one of those books of collections that you can just dip into... similar to The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries... which is a great deal on Amazon right now, you can get a new copy for 1.85 plus shipping, would make a great gift for someone who likes quirky... I gave one to my Brother in Law... who is a little quirky himself...
May 16, 2012
Each 'obituary' is actually a short biographical essay - sparkling, dense, and observant - Thomas finds interest and humanity in each subject. After reading about half the book, I recalled the only other book and writings that I could compare to it: A Universal History of Infamy by Jorge Luis Borges.
April 30, 2010
This book is simply 52 obituaries from this legendary New York Times writer. They really are mini-biographies. I loved this book.
May 11, 2016
wrote a review. it didn't save. not willing to do it again.
It was good. Inspiring. Humbling.
It was good. Inspiring. Humbling.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews