Obituary.

for Michael T. Kaufman

and Robert D. McFadden

John Barth died today, the great post-modernist, at the age of 93. The Times obit was written by Garner, the book critic, and Michael T. Kaufman . . . who? The byline said Kaufman, “editor and correspondent,” died in 2010. Wait, what? That’s fourteen years ago. He must’ve been advance-man, drafting recaps long before the demise of those deemed likely to go any day now. I click his name, and yes, his file’s a list of figures who outlived him. Kenneth Kaunda, 97; Lillian Ross, 99; Morton Sobell, 101. Kissinger! Osama! And further back, a thirty-year career reporting from abroad. He interviewed Idi Amin. His parents fled the Holocaust. Then I find it: “Kaufman, Reporter Who Roamed World, Dead at 71.” Now we’re getting somewhere. The byline? Robert D. McFadden—who’s 87! Good god, is obit desk where old reporters go to die? The last pasture before the glue? How many future obits has McFadden filed? (Hell, how many more Kaufman beyond-the-grave bits are we in for? The man won’t let it rest.) He’s playing the long game, so he thinks, but so are they, his subjects. Is it a thrill to read the obit of the guy who once called you with questions for your own?   The nerve!   I'd be chuffed.