“I fear the bastard is closing in,” my friend Neil King ominously texted me on Aug. 4. And he was right. The bastard was closing in, indeed. Neil fought him off valiantly, trying every treatment available — even, for two weeks, enduring two bouts of radiation a day. But on Sept. 17, the bastard finally caught up with him. Neil King died of complications of esophageal cancer at the age of 65.
I knew and loved Neil as a neighbor, friend and walking partner. But the world knew Neil as a bon vivant, world traveler, author and accomplished journalist. After stringing in Washington for a couple of smaller papers, in the early 1990s, King went to Prague, where Neil and his wife Shailagh were both soon hired by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), filing insightful, haunting accounts of Eastern Europe struggling to recover from the Cold War.
Back in the states, Neil joined the WSJ’s Washington Bureau, covering politics and economic policy. He soon earned a reputation as one of Washington’s leading journalists: intrepid reporter, beautiful writer, brilliant editor. King was part of the WSJ team that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He had a booming voice that rivalled James Earl Jones, but as a member of the Gridiron Club, preferred to be backstage, opening and closing the curtain, than in the spotlight.
Ever a free spirit, King didn’t want to spend the rest of his life behind a desk. So, he left the Journal in 2016 and began, despite his cancer diagnosis in 2017, what he called “the best years of my life.” Even while dealing with an initial round of cancer, and then a cancer recurrence, it’s amazing what King was able to pack into those next seven years. He bought a cottage in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and spent a couple of months there every year. He and Shailagh traveled widely: to Italy, the UK, South America and, this year alone, in between cancer treatments, to Portugal and Greece. He organized a weekly poker game with friends on the Hill. He often went for long walks down the Mall and joined a group of us walking around Hains Point on Saturday mornings.
Meanwhile, Neil was planning his one grand adventure. On March 29, 2021, he walked out of his front door on Capitol Hill, down the Mall, turned north and all the way — 330 miles over 26 days — to New York’s Central Park. His path took him through the back country and Revolutionary War sites of Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Every night he shared that day’s experience in an email to friends and family. A year later, he published “American Ramble,” a heartfelt account of the small towns he visited, the people he met and the lessons he learned along the way. It’s an amazing book, one of the best personal travel books ever written.
As if that wasn’t enough, King and a friend later smuggled two canoes into Central Park and secretly padded across the park’s seven bodies of water.
On Sunday evening, the Washington press corps turned out en masse to celebrate Neil King at the Tune Inn, his favorite bar. (You can read the glowing comments of friends and colleagues here.)
For my part, I’m so grateful I came to count Neil as a friend. I will miss him terribly, but I’ll also never forget the powerful lesson he left all who knew him: Life is short. You never know how much time you have left. So, it’s important to squeeze every bit of life, love and joy out of every minute. Thank you, Neil.
Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”