Our Washington, DC

America’s Hometown in Transition

Like many residents of our nation’s capital, Susan Sheehan is an accidental Washingtonian.

Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1937, she survived the Blitz in London as a very young girl and then settled with her parents into an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It wasn’t until 1966, when her husband, Neil Sheehan, took a job at the DC Bureau of The New York Times, that she became a Washington resident, but there she would raise their two daughters and remain for the next sixty years. 

By then, Susan was a correspondent for The New Yorker, on her way two writing eight books. One of them, Is There No Place on Earth for Me?, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1983. Neil was himself a well-known foreign and war correspondent. After becoming world-famous for his role in surfacing the Pentagon Papers (for which The Times won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service), he would win his own Pulitzer (also for General Nonfiction), in 1989, for his monumental history of the War in Vietnam: A Bright Shining Lie.

 From the earliest age, Susan says, she was a “print junkie.” Having grown up reading The Times instead of children’s books, she says she has always interacted with the world through the filter of great reporting and writing. From this point of view comes her idea of painting a portrait of her adopted hometown with a collection the stories that left strong enough impressions to stick with her through the years.

 Of course, when you reside in Washington, DC, it’s not all about politics. As a local resident, the backdrop of your daily life just happens to be the most powerful city on earth. In describing their hometown, all of these fine writers bring their residency and feelings to bear.

 While it was statedly not Susan’s idea to turn out a political book, experience tells us that a random sample can often yield universal truths. Published in chronological order, the 16 stories in Our Washington, DC begin in 1963 with James R. Reston’s eyewitness account of Martin Luther King’s historic and hopeful “I Have a Dream” speech on the National Mall . . . and features antepenultimately a Linda Greenhouse column from 2022 decrying the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Row v. Wade.

America’s hometown is today in a period of rapid transition. The future is yet to be seen. A free and lively press, dedicated to fact-based reporting, will always be the best window.

Featuring stories by: Amy Argetsinger, Leon Dash, Eddie Dean, David Finkel, Marc Fisher, Linda Greenhouse, Walt Harrington, Wil Haygood, Philip Kennicott, Howard Means, Luke Mullins, Maureen Orth, John Pekkanen, David Remnick, James "Scotty" Reston, Roxanne Roberts, and Josh Swiller.

With a foreword by Howard Means.