The American newspaper has been an institution, as essential to
democracy and daily life as schools, police departments, business
organizations and churches. They had authority. They led. They
covered everything from political leaders, to colorful characters, to
perpetually striving arts -- everything we needed to understand,
sustain and enrich our lives. The folded black-and-white publication
has been a photographic and written record of the life we held in our
hands. The paper gave us community. It told us who we were. The
Daily Miracle is C. Fraser Smith's memoir of a life spent
"newspapering;" a personal chronicle of the daily
re-birthing of three great American newspapers. His book is a
decades-long coming of age tale from obituary-writing days at the
Jersey Journal to his Sunday column at H.L. Menken's papers, The Sun
and Evening Sun -- renamed "Sunpapers" by readers
asserting their ownership. In Jersey City, it was The Jersey
(or Joisey.) In Providence, the Pro-Jo. We re-readers took ownership.
Our Jersey. Our Pro-Jo. Our Sunpapers. Other cities and towns did the
same.
