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Nieman Storyboard’s “Why’s This So Good” explores what makes classic narrative nonfiction stories worth reading.

This week: Deborah Blum examine’s Buzz Bissinger’s “Shattered Glass,” which was originally published in Vanity Fair in Sept. 1998:

You might think that devious and uncooperative Glass would end up simply the evil counterpoint to the dauntless Lane. But Bissinger doesn’t cheapen the tale. One of the things that elevates this above a standard retelling of a sordid story is that the writer shows such a serious, almost nonjudgmental effort to understand what he comes to see as a very troubled child.

Bissinger does indeed end up on a street in Highland Park, pondering the influence of neighborhood and upbringing. He looks at old yearbooks, college newspapers, the history of Glass’s professional career. He talks to friends and former colleagues, (a few actually go on the record). And he puzzles with all of them over the destructive habits of “the sweet and nice boy, the hardworking boy who could never be what he wanted to be, the boy who couldn’t live up to the expectations he had inherited.”

“Why’s This So Good?” No. 34: Buzz Bissinger Trails A Fabulist