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May 1983 Issue
May 1983 Cover
This magazine has been fully digitized as a part of The Atlantic's archive. Each article originally printed in this magazine is available here, complete and unedited from the historical print. Read more from this magazine, or explore the full archive.
  • Voting for Unemployment
    Gregg Easterbrook
  • Guns in the Courts
    Elaine Weiss
  • Sandpiper Poetry
    Peter Davison
  • Chronicle of a Death Foretold
    Phoebe-Lou Adams
  • Truman Capote
    Phoebe-Lou Adams
  • Home Before Morning
    Phoebe-Lou Adams

Benign Violence

“Some surgeons are just lucky,” according to one doctor. But a surgeon’s luck is a matter of skill and character

By Mark Kramer
May 1983 Issue

About the Author

Mark Kramer
Mark Kramer is the founder of the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism and the Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism, and the author of Three Farms, Invasive Procedures, and Travels With a Hungry Bear.

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