Upon scanning the list of Pulitzer Prize winners for 2014 I noticed one glaring omission: no award had been given for feature writing. Although the other categories have plenty of gravitas, feature writing really provides that glimpse into humanity that hard news and even photography can’t quite manage.
Assuming that the reason for this travesty was due to indecision on the part of the judges, I browsed through the finalists and ended up reading each of them.
“The Girl in the Closet” by Scott Farwell — for The Dallas Morning News.
This told the story of Lauren Kavanaugh and the hell that she went through at the hands of her biological mother and stepfather, who sexually, psychologically and physically abused her for six years.
The descriptions and firsthand accounts of what Lauren looked like when she was found as well as the testimony of her adoptive parents serve to both break the readers heart and demonize the biological mother, who went against every natural parental instinct in the torture of her daughter.
The magic of this story is in the way Lauren has recovered from the abuse and, despite being severely developmentally handicapped, risen to be a fairly normal young woman.
My one gripe with the story is the repetitiveness. The story is told in multiple chapters that were published at different times, meaning that each chapter has an element of review so that a reader who didn’t read the previous chapters has some reference. Although this may have been a good idea, it makes the story repetitive at times when read in one sitting.
“The Manhunt for Christopher Dorner” by Christopher Goffard, Joel Rubin and Kurt Streeter — for the Los Angeles Times
This should have been the winner in my opinion.
The Christopher Dorner manhunt was plastered all over national news for a week last year and left the state of California trembling right up until its fiery end. Although the story seems scary enough from the national coverage, the amount of in depth detail and anecdotal style of this story really hits the sense of fear and confusion home.
This story follows an exact timeline of the events from the perspectives of law enforcement, their families and civilians who either witnessed attacks or were confronted by Dorner while he was on the run. The pace of the story is particularly noticeable, as each chapter ramps up in intensity and always ends with gripping, staccato lines.
“The Course of Their Lives” by Mark Johnson — for the Journal Sentinel
This story describes a group of medical students and their first foray into the morgue to dissect human cadavers. First thoughts are that the story would be graphic in detail of the procedures involved. However, very early on it is apparent that this isn’t the case.
The story delves both into the feelings and reasoning behind the medical students’ decision to follow this career path and the distinct honor that they hold for the people who donated their corpses. It also delves into the former lives of the cadavers, describing their thoughts of what would happen to their bodies and why they decided to donate for science.