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Hermione Lee Wins 2020 BIO Award BIO's Biographers Circle Brings Together Writers and Lovers of Biography BIO, Other Organizat

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November 2019 | Volume 14 | Number 9 Hermione Lee Wins 2020 There's Still BIO Award Time! You can still register for the Editoral Excellence Award event By Justin Spring on Wednesday, November 13, Dame Hermione Lee, Emeritus honoring this year’s winner, Professor of English , Ilene Smith. She will take part , is the winner in a panel discussion with three of the 11th annual BIO Award, a of her authors: Wendy Lesser, prize bestowed yearly by the James Kaplan, and Justin Spring. Biographers International The event, to be held at the Organization to a distinguished Skylight Room at the CUNY colleague who has made a major Graduate Center, 365 Fifth contribution to the advancement of Avenue, City, begins the art and craft of . Lee at 6:30 p.m. and includes a will receive the honor on May 16, at reception. There is no charge, the 2020 BIO Conference at the but registration is required and is Graduate Center of the City limited to 70 people. You can University of New York, where she register here. will also deliver the conference’s keynote address. One of the leading literary scholars and critics of our time, Lee is best known for her (1996), widely considered the definitive biography of that author. The book won the British Academy’s Rose Mary Crawshay Prize. First-time Comfortable with literature from both sides of the Atlantic, Lee has written Biographers, biographies of two American novelists, and , and also Apply Now for a critical study of . In addition, she has written a biography of the Anglo-Irish novelist and, most recently, of the British novelist, the Rowley poet, essayist, and biographer Penelope Fitzgerald. Penelope Fitzgerald: A Prize! Life was the winner of the 2013 James Tait Black Prize and BIO’s 2015 Award. Biographers International Organization (BIO) is now Lee has written extensively on the art and craft of what she calls “life-writing,” accepting applications for the most notably in her books Virginia Woolf ’s Nose: Essays on Biography (2005) and Hazel Rowley Prize. The Biography: A Very Short Introduction (2009). She is a fine critical reviewer and prize rewards a biography judge of biographies, and her reviews have appeared regularly in book proposal from a first- and The New York Review of Books, among many other publications. She was chair time biographer with: funding of the judges for the Man Booker Prize for fiction in 2006 and has judged many (a $2,000 award); a careful other literary prizes throughout her career. In her work as a scholar of literature, reading from an established she has edited and introduced numerous editions and anthologies of works by agent; one year’s membership major English and American writers, including Rudyard Kipling, Anthony in BIO (along with Trollope, Virginia Woolf, Stevie Smith, Elizabeth Bowen, Willa Cather, Eudora registration to the annual Welty, and Penelope Fitzgerald. conference); and publicity for Hermione Lee has worked hard to raise the academic perception of biography. the author and project As president of Wolfson College, Oxford, she founded the Oxford Centre for Life- through the BIO website,The Writing, in 2011. Nearly 10 years later, the Centre has become a busy hub of Biographer’s Craft newsletter, activities relating to many kinds of life-writing and interdisciplinary inquiry. etc. The prize is a way for Through its sponsorship of talks, lectures, performances, panel discussions, BIO—an organization of conferences, seminars, and workshops the Centre has helped raise public awareness biographers, agents, editors, about various forms of life-writing. It also fosters biographical research through and biography devotees—to postdoctoral research fellowships, postgraduate scholarships, visiting scholarships, advance its mission and and visiting doctoral studentships. extend its reach to talented new practitioners. The prize is Lee’s honors are almost too many to list. She is a Fellow of the British open to all first-time Academy and of the Royal Society of Literature, and a Foreign Honorary Member biographers anywhere in the of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was appointed Commander of world who are writing in the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2003 for services to literature, and in English; who are working on 2013 was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), a biography that has not been also for services to literary scholarship. commissioned, contracted, or “I am delighted, honored, and amazed,” Lee wrote BIO President Linda self-published; and who have Leavell when informed she had won the BIO Award. “Thank you so much, and never published a book- thanks to the committee. It is particularly exciting to be given this prize for the length biography, history, or Life-Writing Centre here in Oxford as well as for my writing. I accept with work of narrative nonfiction. pleasure.” Biography is defined for this Previous BIO Award winners are James McGrath Morris, Jean Strouse, Robert prize as a narrative of an Caro, Arnold Rampersad, , , , Claire individual’s life or the story Tomalin, Candice Millard, and Richard Holmes. of a group of lives. Innovative ways of treating a Justin Spring, chairman of this year’s Awards Committee, is the author of Secret Historian: The life (or lives) will be Life and Times of Samuel Steward (FSG, 2011), The Gourmands’ Way: Six Americans in Paris and the Birth of a New Gastronomy (FSG, 2017), and Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art (Yale considered at the committee’s University Press, 1999). A Finalist for the National Book Award and the recipient of many other discretion. , prizes and honors, he has also held a Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction Writing and a Leon however, are not eligible. The Levy Fellowship in biography. He specializes in interdisciplinary and cross-cultural subjects. deadline for applying is March 1, 2020. You can find BIO’s Biographers Circle more information about the prize and the application Brings Together Writers and process here. Lovers of Biography Apply for the By Deirdre David and Will Swift Caro On October 2, 2019, the first gathering of The Biographers Circle was held at the Research/Travel New York townhouse of Gayfryd Steinberg (BIO’s newest Advisory Council Fellowship member) and her husband Michael Shnayerson. According to BIO’s Development Committee (Deirdre David, Kitty Kelley, and Will Swift), the evening was an BIO is accepting applications for “extraordinary success.” the Robert and Ina Caro In 2018, BIO’s esteemed colleague, the late James Atlas, had introduced Swift Research/Travel Fellowship. BIO to Steinberg and Shnayerson, knowing they were interested in supporting the work members with a work in progress of biographers. The result of that meeting was a plan to invite potential donors to may apply to receive funding to BIO to attend dinners at the home of Steinberg and Shnayerson and to hear talks support research trips to archives from distinguished biographers. As Steinberg put it in her invitation, “For those of and to places that are significant us who love a good biography, and even more so the thought of discussing it with in the life of a particular its creator, The Biographers Circle presents an exciting new opportunity—one that biographical subject. The can both edify its members as well as help biographers do their vital work.” fellowship is restricted to supporting works of biography and not works of history, , or . BIO welcomes submissions for non- print biographies such as documentary film. The application deadline is February 1, 2020. In the spring of 2020, BIO will award either one $5,000 or two $2,500 fellowships, based on the Gayfryd Steinberg kicks off the first which featured as the Biographers Circle event. . . speaker. assessment of three judges: Deirdre David, Marc Leepson, and Steve Paul. To apply, click Fifty-four people were present on October 2, approximately two-thirds of them here. supporters of this initiative and the others friends of Atlas. People donated in The Caro Fellowship, first amounts varying from a minimum of $500 to $5,000. The total raised was awarded in 2018, is given in $26,000, a substantial portion of which will support the Robert and Ina Caro honor of Robert and Ina Caro, Research/Travel Fellowship for the next four years. All this was possible due to the whose work demonstrates the generosity, organization, and social skills of Steinberg. significance of a sense of place in Opening the event, Swift delivered remarks about BIO’s mission and the delineating character and the importance of supporting biography in this era when truth is under attack. One of value of in-depth archival the 2019 Caro Fellowship winners, Nicholas Boggs, delivered a report on how the research. fellowship allowed him to travel to Corsica to advance his research for a biography of . Kelley prepared a two-page handout featuring the four fellowship winners from 2018–2019, and David and Swift assembled a list of Apply for the authors in attendance, noting their most recent publications. The highlight of the evening was a speech by Robert Caro about the uses of Swift Nonfiction political power. He told stories about the gnarled women of the Texas Hill Country Scholarship — whose lives were forever changed for the better when Lyndon Biographer and former BIO Johnson used his political power to bring electricity to their part of Texas. Literary president Wayne “Will” Swift, an critic and memoir writer Daphne Merkin, an old friend of Atlas, paid a moving alumnus of Middlebury College, tribute to his work and to his friendship. has established the Wayne S. Another friend of Atlas in attendance was Phyllis Rose, whose books include Swift ‘69 Nonfiction Scholarship biographies of Virginia Woolf and Josephine Baker. She said the room was rapt for the Bread Loaf Writers’ during the presentations and “the whole evening was a tremendous success, Conference (BLWC). The fund, fascinating people in an elegant setting with great food. Gayfryd Steinberg and established in June 2019, Michael Shnayerson welcomed the group warmly to their beautiful home and both provides scholarship aid for spoke movingly about their devotion to writers and the work of biography.” emerging writers of nonfiction, Also attending was BIO Advisory Council member Stacy Schiff. She singled including history, biography, or out Steinberg for praise: “She assembled a full cast of biographers and readers; she memoir, to attend the 2020 somehow—gently and efficiently—managed to herd us all; she offered a smart, BLWC in Ripton, Vermont, stirring embrace of our unusual sport. In other words, if you hadn’t entered the which will be held August 12– room as a biographer you might have left as one. Her support means everything to 27. The Swift scholar will BIO. It puts us on a new footing.” participate in a nonfiction Along with Steinberg and Shnayerson, the Development Committee is planning workshop led by a distinguished an ongoing series of events and dinners. The next dinner, on March 11, will writer, attend craft lectures and feature Schiff as a speaker. In the meantime, to become a member of The readings, and gain professional Biographers Circle, please email Deirdre David, Kitty Kelley, or Will Swift. counsel from literary agents, Deirdre David is a past vice president of BIO. Her most recent book is Pamela Hansford Johnson: editors, and publishers. A Writing Life. Will Swift is a past president of BIO. His most recent book is Pat and Dick: The Admissions information is Nixons, An Intimate Portrait of a Marriage. available here, with applications accepted through February 15. There is no special application BIO, Other Organizations for the Swift Scholarship; all nonfiction writers accepted to the Issue Statement on Fair Use conference are eligible. The BLWC admissions committee By will choose and notify the winner Perhaps a biographer’s worst nightmare is to be told by his or her publisher’s of the 2020 Swift Scholarship in lawyers that he or she cannot quote from all those colorful diaries and letters and the spring. must instead rewrite his or her manuscript so as to only paraphrase or summarize these sources. This happened to Ian Hamilton in 1986, when he was sued by the subject of his biography, J. D. Salinger. Random House compelled Hamilton to From the Editor rewrite his book, taking out all the quotes. Salinger wasn’t satisfied with even the The calendar may say there’s still paraphrased use of his letters and sued Hamilton and his publisher. The courts almost two months left to 2019, eventually ruled in Salinger’s favor—a case that made very bad law for but here at TBC we’re already biographers and historians. Congress amended the Copyright Act in 1992, thinking ahead to 2020. In part, that’s because we now know the explicitly allowing for a “fair use” publication of unpublished works, such as name of the next BIO Award diaries and letters. But ever since the Salinger case, editors and publishers have winner, Hermione Lee, who will been overly cautious in dealing with fair use cases. Over the years, the courts have be honored at BIO’s annual in fact moved away from the draconian implications of the Salinger case. conference in May. And, we’re Biographers International Organization, the Biography also thinking about the year Seminar, and the Leon Levy Center for Biography have now adopted a statement ahead because it’s time to fill in the slots for our Member on good practices for biographers dealing with fair use issues. The statement was Interview column. If you haven’t drafted by BIO members Carl Rollyson, Anne Heller, and Kai Bird in consultation taken part before and would like with several legal scholars and lawyers representing a number of New York to, in 2020, please let me know. publishers. You can read the statement here. All months except January and April are open. December 2019 is Kai Bird is the executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography and a BIO board member. still available as well. All slots He is currently working on a biography of . are filled on a first-email, first- served basis. Along with news on the BIO Lessons from A Award winner, this issue offers a look at the first Biographers Circle event, a fundraising effort that By Jane Lincoln Taylor brings together biographers and biography fans; When a world-renowned biographer and two- correspondent Andrew Lownie’s time Pulitzer Prize-winner reveals the tricks experiences with his latest of his trade, biography enthusiasts eagerly biography; a write-up of a recent listen. In mid-October, an overflow crowd at Leon Levy event that featured the Graduate Center of the City University of past BIO Award-winner Robert New York heard Robert Caro, author of The Caro; and our usual features and other BIO news. Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Next month, we’ll start our Johnson, discuss his latest book, Working: annual look at the best Researching, Interviewing, Writing. biographies of 2019, as selected His interlocutor was Kai Bird, executive by various media outlets in North director of the Leon Levy Center for America and the . Biography at CUNY and a fellow Pulitzer We’ll also have a report from our Australasian correspondent, Todd winner (with cowriter Martin Sherwin, for Nicholls, on Australia’s National Working combines previously American Prometheus: The Triumph and Centre for Biography. published essays with new Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer). Finally, two corrections from material. In his recent book, Caro focuses on how the last issue: in the tribute to power changes societies. Textbooks, he noted, James Atlas, the author listed for say democracy’s power comes from elections. “Biography was a way of finding the Penguin Lives biography of Joan of Arc should have been out for myself how political power works,” he added, and the subject was more Mary Gordon; thanks to Kathleen nuanced than he’d suspected. Spaltro for pointing this out. Also, When researching , about , whose public works we had the wrong email address transformed , Caro realized that this unelected city planner touched for people looking to send news millions of lives—for good and for ill. He showed the benefits of Moses’s efforts, items to the new BIO quarterly but also the immense human cost. newsletter. The correct address is [email protected]. Caro’s first volume on Johnson appeared in 1982; the fifth is underway. Bird jokingly recalled a New Yorker cartoon by W. B. Park of a man at his typewriter, Yours, surrounded by stacks of manuscripts, saying to a woman, “Finish it? Why would I Michael Burgan want to finish it?” Caro responded, “I like finishing . . . eventually.”

Turning Every Page What takes him so long? Caro and his wife Ina, his research assistant, are famous for their thoroughness. Confronted with Johnson’s overwhelming presidential library (containing some 35 million pages), they remain undaunted. Unexpected treasures lie in surprising places—including an obscure folder marked “General” that offered an important biographical clue—so they aim to “turn every page.” Bird asked if Caro identified with his subjects, known for their obsessiveness and for having “expansive visions realized over a long period.” Caro confessed that since childhood he’s been obsessive too. Caro often re-interviews sources, earning deeper revelations as trust grows (or Sign Up for the they’re worn down by his persistence). “I don’t think any source is impeccable,” he said. “You have to find out what is wrong with each source. You have to go New BIO back to people over and over again.” Quarterly Moses initially refused an interview. Other biographers warned, “He’ll never Newsletter talk to you, and his family and friends will never talk to you.” Caro imagined those around Moses in concentric circles; Moses could prevent the inner circle Have you signed up to receive from speaking to Caro, but not those further out, so he started there. Eventually a The Latest News in Biography call came from Moses’s daughter: “Papa Bear wants to talk to you.” quarterly newsletter? You can “He remembered pragmatic things in incredible detail,” said Caro. “But then read the premiere September he’d jump up like a kid and go to the map,” treating the metropolitan region like a 2019 issue, pictured above, here. big painting. “He was a genius, like Picasso in front of a canvas. Moses was a We hope you will share the genius of public works.” They met seven times. Finally, Caro asked Moses about a newsletter with your colleagues shady confederate. Though Caro crafted his question carefully, Moses abruptly and readers. Please subscribe said, “That’s enough for today.” They never met again. here. Caro couldn’t interview Johnson, but his phone transcripts were revelatory. Do you have biography news “Unvarnished!” Caro exclaimed. “There were days when he forgot to turn off the you would like to share for tape recorder,” offering valuable insights. “He’s escalating the , but at future newsletters? Let us know! the same time he’s working to pass Medicare. I’m seeing political genius as it is exercised.”

Crafting the Story Follow BIO on The subtitle of Caro’s Working ends with “writing.” The best history makes the Facebook! reader see the scene, Caro said. “Moses evicted 250,000 people to create the Cross- Get the latest BIO news and Bronx Expressway. I took one mile and showed in detail what was there before he share questions and ideas with dispossessed all the people.” other biographers by following Readers are surprised, Caro said—given the decades spent on Johnson—that he the BIO Facebook pages. We writes relatively quickly. He aims for 1,000 words daily, writing on legal pads and have both a page, which is triple-spacing typed drafts for editing. “I wear a tie and jacket to work to remind visible to everyone, and a group, myself that I’m working and that it is a job.” which has content visible only to Seeing Subjects Whole people who elect to join it. Both Caro’s subjects constantly surprise him. Moses, known for displacing families, was are open to members and non- an idealistic young man. “Moses wanted to create places where the middle classes members like. could bathe in the ocean like rich people do. What made him change from one kind of man to the other?” He feels Johnson’s character, though similarly complex, was consistent. “He was the same human being from beginning to end, but one of great contrasts,” Feeling Stuck? Caro said. The Vietnam tragedy must be juxtaposed to civil rights advances and Whatever state your biography’s Johnson’s “stream of compassion.” Caro added, “Your prejudices are constantly in—vague idea, proposal, well being altered by what you find.” underway—BIO’s experienced Bird said Oppenheimer “was a victim of historical circumstances and of his biographers can help. BIO offers time. Are you grappling with the same feeling with Johnson? Are you seeing him a one-hour phone or email sympathetically?” Caro replied, “I am seeing him whole.” mentoring session for US$80. (The cost of any additional Jane Lincoln Taylor is a freelance editor and writer with a particular interest in biography. sessions can be worked out with your mentor.) Email Cathy Curtis with a brief statement Revealing the Mountbattens: about the nature of your project and your goals for the one-hour One Biographer’s Exhaustive session. Quest for Facts Sold to Publishers By Andrew Lownie, TBC United Kingdom Laurie Gwen Shapiro Correspondent Amelia and George Whilst researching my last book, a biography (Amelia Earhart and George Palmer Putnam) of the spy Guy Burgess, I had to read up on sold to Viking Dickie Mountbatten who had been at the same by Peter Steinberg at school and naval college. It struck me that Foundry Literary + Media Mountbatten, though he had had several official and unofficial lives, was a ripe Bernice Lerner biographical subject, especially now that he All the Horrors of War: A Jewish Girl, a British Doctor, and the Liberation of was a major figure on the Netflix series The Bergen-Belsen Crown, and if combined with his wife, the sold to Johns Hopkins University Press socialite heiress and humanitarian Edwina. and Amberley Press One obituary of Dickie Mountbatten had by Sylvie Carr of The Carr Agency noted: “It seemed almost unbelievable that one human being could have touched the history of our century at so many points.” He Julia Scheeres and Allison Gilbert Untitled biography of Elsie Robinson was head of Combined Operations, a member of the Chiefs of Staff and then sold to Seal Press Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Southeast Asia during the Second World by Richard Morris at Janklow & Nesbit War, the last Viceroy and first Governor-General of , First Sea Lord and Chief of the Defense Staff, member of the Royal Family, and mentor of Prince Rachel Trethewey Philip and Prince Charles. Mountbatten’s life, which covered the first 80 years of The Churchill Girls: the Story of the 20th century, seemed to encompass every important moment and historical Winston’s Daughters sold to St. Martin’s Press figure of the century from Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower to by Michelle Tessler at Tessler Literary Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, from Chiang Kai-shek and Aung San to Joe Agency, on behalf of Heather Holden- Stilwell and Winston Churchill. Brown at HHB Agency The previous books on Dickie and Edwina had understandably concentrated on their public lives, but no one had written a joint biography, especially looking at John Boessenecker their marriage, an unusual one that, whilst loving, was marked by infidelities on Wildcat (Pearl Hart) both sides. Dickie would later claim, “Edwina and I spent all our married lives sold to Hanover Square Press getting into other people’s beds.” By my calculations Edwina had almost 20 lovers by Claire Gerus at during her marriage and he almost as many. Claire Gerus Literary Agency What interested me was to examine the way their personal and public lives intersected. In the case of the Mountbattens, this was not simply prurience, not Catherine Musemeche least because the perception of Edwina’s relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru has Lethal Tides (Mary Sears) had huge political consequences to this day. Though the Mountbattens’ personal sold to William Morrow relations were sometimes strained and they discussed divorce several times, their by Marcy Posner at public partnership was strong. Repeatedly, Edwina was deployed to further Folio Literary Management Dickie’s career or secure an honor; his appointment as Viceroy was, in part, because, as Attlee later wrote, “he had in Lady Mountbatten a wife who would Daniel Brook admirably assist him.” Mind On Fire (Magnus Hirschfeld) The book is then the story of two people and their marriage, how they sold to W. W. Norton supported each other and competed with each other. It is also the story of how a by Larry Weissman at little lost rich girl discovered during World War Two a sense of purpose and found Larry Weissman Literary she could come out from under the shadow of her controlling husband to become a substantial figure in her own right. What fascinated me were the very contradictory Jonathan Petropoulos elements of their characters and the extreme range of views about them. Goering’s Man in Paris: The Story of A Nazi Art Plunderer and His World My first port of call was the Mountbatten Papers at Southampton University, (Bruno Lohse) comprising of 250,000 papers and 50,000 photographs. This was a biographer’s sold to Press dream. Dickie, in particular, seemed to have kept every single piece of paper that by Michael Carlisle at crossed his desk from his earliest days. Here were letters written with great candor Inkwell Management to his parents, school reports, subject files on all his public posts, speeches, correspondence with everyone they had known, condolence letters, press-cuttings, Nia-Malika Henderson books, visitor’s books, game books, and even inventories of their furniture. sold to Ecco But it was clear from gaps in the inventories that the collection was not by Deneen Howell at complete and much was held back either at Southampton or at the Mountbatten Williams & Connolly home, Broadlands. It also became apparent during my research that the papers had been heavily weeded. Mountbatten, like Churchill, had a habit of retaining secret Elise Jordan papers. And, there were numerous sweeps of his papers by the Cabinet Office, Other Fronts (Kay Summersby) Ministry of Defense, and Foreign Office on the grounds of national security and sold to Knopf international relations—fearful that comments of Mountbatten as Viceroy could by David Kuhn and Nate Muscato at still be politically embarrassing. Dickie had also deposited his most sensitive papers Aevitas Creative Management in the Royal Archives, where it is unlikely scholars will ever have access to them. Most importantly, it became clear that the couple’s diaries and correspondence Steven Gillon had been closed under a Ministerial Direction. For the last three years, I have been Untitled biography of sold to Dutton fighting through the courts to demonstrate that this material sold by the family in by Steve Troha at lieu of tax and bought with public funds on the grounds it would be open to all, Folio Literary Management should be made available. The case continues. My research was supplemented by research in archives around the world, Elaina Plott including at the Nehru Memorial Library in Delhi, the New York Public Library, In the Dead Fire’s Ashes and Harvard and Yale universities. I also traced and interviewed over a 100 people (George Wallace and Frank Johnson) sold to Penguin Press who had known the couple, including: their daughter Lady Pamela Hicks and other by Matt Latimer and members of the family; members of his personal staff, including his valet for 10 Keith Urbahn at Javelin years, his footman, his gamekeeper since 1956, his driver from 1948, his personal pilot, his 1979 bodyguard, and his ADCs and Military Secretary; as well as former Willem-Jan Verlinden girlfriends (or their children) who supplied love letters. The Van Gogh Sisters A series of Freedom of Information requests revealed some sensational sold to Thames & Hudson by Paul Sebes at Sebes & Bisseling information—that the FBI had had files on the couple from 1944 to the 1960s, with three informants claiming that Mountbatten was not only bisexual but also a Edward O’Keefe pedophile. This backed up rumors that had circulated since Mountbatten’s murder The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt by the IRA in 1979, and I began to look at this aspect of his life more closely, sold to Simon & Schuster eventually interviewing two men who persuasively claimed to have been abused by by Matt Latimer and Mountbatten in 1977, when they were 16. Keith Urbahn at Javelin

My book was timed to come out for the 40th anniversary of Mountbatten’s John Rhodehamel death in August 2019. Would it appear insensitive to make such disclosures at such Original Sin: White Supremacy and the a time? In the British papers a man—nothing to do with Mountbatten—claiming to Lincoln Assassination have been abused as part of a VIP sex abuse ring was shown to have been a fraud. (John Wilkes Booth) The paper that had bought extract rights in the book cancelled the deal. No one sold to Johns Hopkins University Press wanted to cover my book, even though the section on Mountbatten’s bisexuality by Christopher Rogers at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner constituted only 4,000 words in a book of 120,000 words, and the book was extensively sourced. Patricia Bosworth The death of Jeffrey Epstein saved the book. It brought the issue of the Royal Protest Song Family and sex abuse allegations back into the news. The Sunday Times ran a front (Paul Robeson) page story that was picked up around the world; The Times bought serial rights; sold to Farrar, Straus and Giroux fresh evidence emerged to back up my claims; and the book was widely reviewed by David Kuhn and Nate Muscato at Aevitas Creative Management and entered the bestseller lists.

My three years of research have been justified, and I am updating the book for Patrick Dean the paperback and to sell a U.S. edition. I am still hopeful that I will win my court A Window to Heaven case and the diaries and letters will be released. I feel sorry for Mountbatten’s 90- (Hudson Stuck) year-old daughter, who kindly gave me an interview, but I suspect the news about sold to Pegasus her father was not a surprise—a member of the Royal Family had told me, “All by Farley Chase at Chase Literary Agency you need to know is that Edwina liked black men and Dickie liked young men.”

Sometimes a biographer, whilst sensitive to the feelings of the family, has to have Jimmy Tobin that Graham Greene shard of glass in their heart. Killed In Brazil?:The Mysterious Death The picture I hope I have presented in my book is sympathetic to both of Arturo Gatti individuals, showing their vulnerabilities and insecurities, as well as their strengths, sold to Hamilcar and presenting a more rounded portrait than previous lives. Christina Anderson Apart from The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves, Andrew Lownie is the author of lives of the Silent Hunter writer John Buchan, the Cambridge spy Guy Burgess, and a forthcoming joint biography of the (Kim Wall and Peter Madsen) Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He was the British representative on the six-man team that set up sold to BenBella Books the International Spy in Washington, D.C., and founded the Biographers Club, of which by Elias Altman at Massie & McQuilkin he is now president, in 1997. Ron Franscell Shadow Man Shorts (David Meirhofer) sold to Berkley by Linda Konner at Reporters Committee Fights for Biographer’s FOIA Request Linda Konner Literary Agency Attorneys for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have filed a complaint on behalf of BIO board member Kai Bird, seeking to compel the U.S. State Department to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request that Bird Please Keep submitted to the department more than three years ago. Bird, who is working on a biography of Jimmy Carter, is seeking access to a State Department cable sent Your Info from the U.S. Embassy in Madrid in 1980, which may confirm that Bill Casey, Current then Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager during his run for the White House, was in Madrid that summer. Casey’s visit there is connected to the “October Surprise” Making a move or just theory, which alleges that the Reagan campaign made a deal with the government changed your email? We ask of Iran to delay the release of American hostages then held in that country until BIO members to keep their after the presidential election. In return, Reagan would provide Israeli arms to Iran contact information up to if he won the election. The complaint, filed in September, said that the State date, so we and other Department “has unlawfully withheld agency records . . . in violation of the Act.” members know where to find The full complaint is available here. you. Update your information in the Member Area of the Lincoln Biographer’s Books Go to Presidential Library BIO website. A collection of roughly 130 books that once belonged to Abraham Lincoln biographer Benjamin Thomas were recently donated to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois. Thomas, a well-known Membership Up biographer of Lincoln during the mid-20th century, made notes and annotations in the books that may be of use to current scholars, according to Tammy Kuhn- for Renewal? Schnell, dean of the Lincoln Land Community College Library, which donated the Please respond promptly to books to the Lincoln Presidential Library. Kuhn-Schnell told the Springfield State- your membership renewal Journal Register, “For researchers, the collection and notations can provide insight notice. As a nonprofit into Thomas’s reading, thoughts, and personal research and scholarship.” Thomas’s organization, BIO depends on work included Abraham Lincoln: A Biography; Lincoln, 1847–1853, Being the members’ dues to fund our Day-by-Day Activities of Abraham Lincoln from January 1, 1847 to December 31, annual conference, the 1853; and biographies of other figures of the Civil War era. publication of this newsletter, and the other work we do to Carrie Fisher Biographer Faces Push Back from Subject’s Family support biographers around Biographers frequently deal with relatives of their subjects who choose not to the world. When renewing, participate in a project or denounce the finished product. Sheila Weller’s war of please make sure the contact words with the ex-husband and daughter of the subject of her new biography is information we have for you is receiving wide publicity—her subject is the late film star Carrie Fisher, best known up to date. for portraying in the movies. Several weeks before Weller’s Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge hit bookstore shelves, Fisher’s ex- husband, Bryan Lourd, issued a statement to . It said, in part: “A person named Sheila Weller has taken it upon herself to sell and write an Are You a unauthorized biography based on my daughter’s mother, Carrie Fisher. I do not Student? know Ms. Weller. [Daughter] Billie does not know Ms. Weller. And, to my Or do you know one who is knowledge, Carrie did not know her. Ms. Weller sold this book on her own without interested in biography? BIO our involvement. For all the fans and friends of Carrie, I just thought it necessary now has a special student that you know this information before you decided to purchase this book or membership rate. Visit the consider what is being said in the upcoming press interviews Weller will do while BIO website to find out more. trying to sell it.” reported that Weller said she twice contacted a representative of the Lourds in 2017, informing them of the book and seeking their approval. Weller said, “I was turned down—but in a gracious email— the first time, and invited to re-inquire later. My two follow-ups met with no response.” Weller’s previous books include Girls Like Us, a group biography of Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon. That book won positive reviews, and A Life on the Edge earned a starred review from Booklist.

Member Interview Six Questions Biographer's Diary

with Miki By Cathy Curtis Pfeffer Why I’m Not Writing a Reference Book Entry

What is your current Years ago, I checked out project and at what stage armfuls of books from the Miki Pfeffer's previous book was Southern Ladies is it? library about five vastly and Suffragists: Julia Ward Howe and Women's The project continues: different topics and raced Rights at the 1884 New Orleans World's Fair. transcribing the letters of through them to digest key Grace King. I’m in the information in order to write gathering and selecting five 1,000-word essays by a stage. In my just-published A New Orleans Author in Mark Twain’s Court: deadline that was two weeks Letters from Grace King’s New England Sojourns, I focused on her away. The Dictionary of budding career and the two-decades-long friendship with Sam and American History was about to Clemens and their three daughters, in the years 1885 to 1910. I’m not a publish its third edition, and Twain scholar, but I know those who are will appreciate King’s fresh view. Readers of her fiction and histories are aware of a friendship with Twain several academics had not yet but not its nature. Her letters give details of the literary lion as loving turned in their essays, so the husband, father, and friend. She and Livy Clemens were trusted confidants, DAH reached out to journalists so the personal is revealed with few filters, and letters exchanged with like me, offering reasonably [daughters] Susy, Clara, and Jean also fill in little spaces of family life. enticing pay. I’m looking now at letters King wrote after 1910, about places and Thrumming with the people in New Orleans and the social disruptions of the First World War. adrenalin of a deadline project, Each letter is a little piece of history. As in biography, telling a life in letters I made notes of significant demands careful selection. facts about Dentistry, While speaking now about A New Orleans Author in Mark Twain’s Disasters, Emigration, Poverty, Court, the second volume begins to take form. It’s been a special treat to and Urban Development. With be interviewed by Steve Courtney of the curatorial staff at the Mark Twain no guidelines other than the House at several venues, beginning with the Louisiana Book Festival. I word count, I felt free to also look forward to being a panelist at the Tennessee Williams Festival and mention whatever seemed revisiting the Mark Twain House in the spring. interesting and timely, pointing What person would you most like to write about? out, for example, in “Poverty,” Once I’m over my obsession with Grace King, I’m interested in Eliza Jane the bias of right-wing Nicholson, the first female publisher of a major daily newspaper (the New propaganda about “welfare Orleans Daily Picayune). From 1876 until her death in 1896, she wielded queens” supposedly power with aplomb and mentored a number of journalists when women committing fraud. were just beginning to need to earn wages. ’s Recently, I was asked to in Personal History is called “the second female write an unpaid entry for a publisher of a major American newspaper” after Nicholson. Articles written reference book about the artist about the Picayune’s publisher tell about her as poet and businesswoman, Nell Blaine, the subject of my but I’ve read letters that paint the portrait of a zestier woman behind her recent biography. The prospect rather conservative image. I’d broaden her story. of not receiving even token What have been your most satisfying moments as a biographer? pay was already off-putting. When I transcribed enough letters to move from being a dubious observer But then I learned that each to appreciating the interior, if flawed, Grace King. When the manuscript entry was supposed to follow left my hands for the last time. When during a presentation I see a the same structure: birthdate, heightened interest occurring, as happened when I read a small paper to the education, marriage (but not Mark Twain Circle and realized I was offering them a welcome new voice. “partners”), titles of works, and When early readers of the book got from it exactly what I’d hoped. honors, with a brief One research/marketing/attitudinal tip to share? explanation of why this person About research: begin anywhere. The documents lead you to the next ones. was important. Adhering to Pull each thread. Attitudinal: speak early before various groups about the this formula struck me as an subject. Listening to their questions and your answers can help clarify and incredibly boring and pointless shape the narrative. A marketing tip to pass on from my writers’ group: task. create bookmarks. The subjects I write about do not fit neatly into these If you weren’t a biographer, what dream profession would you be in, classifications. Blaine was and why? married once, but this was a I’ve already enjoyed two satisfying careers, as a fashion illustrator and as a mere blip in her bisexual life. manufacturer’s representative. I hardly dared to have this third one. The people who mattered most Maybe an airline courier so I could travel the world at someone else’s to her were the women with expense? whom she was in love. Her What genre, besides biography, do you read for pleasure and who are fascination for me is not rooted some of your favorite writers? specifically in her body of I range widely. I like Simon Winchester’s cultural and travel writings. I’m work, but rather in the as likely to read Jane Austen as a modern novelist. I read works by New trajectory of her eventful life. Orleans people, by writers I know, and books my reading buddies While my unwillingness to recommend. I like short stories and old and new and art contribute an entry means that books connected with exhibits at and archives. I’m in four book she probably won’t be clubs and am up for almost everything on the docket. I wouldn’t pick up included in the book, I don’t some of them, but discussions can be as illuminating about the think I am doing her an unsuccessful as about treasured reads. Otherwise, I “live” in scholarly injustice—quite the contrary. works on the 19th century. So many books; so little time. Unlike biographers who spend decades working on one Prizes subject, I live with each of mine for about two years. Whiting Grant During this period of daily Three biographers are among the winners of this year’s Whiting Creative researching and writing, I am Nonfiction Grants: passionately dedicated to the

Wil S. Hylton, who is working on The Call of Empire: The Midnight project, whether tracking down Rescue of Evangelina Cosío and the Rise of the American Century. an obscure reference, waking Channing Gerard Joseph, who is working on House of Swann: Where up in the middle of the night Slaves Became Queens. with a new thought, or Ilyon Woo, who is working on Master Slave Husband Wife: An American obsessively rewriting a Love Story. paragraph. But I am not interested in serving in a public Grantees receive $40,000 to complete a work of “deeply researched and relations capacity for my imaginatively composed nonfiction.” You can read about all the winners here. subjects. Their inclusion in New guidelines for the 2020 grants will be available in February. reference books is of no Baillie Gifford Prize particular concern to me. The shortlist for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction includes these So I turned down this offer. biographies: I would not want my name to appear on an entry that Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep inevitably would fail to reveal The Lives of Lucian Freud: The Restless Years, 1922–1968 by William my subject in all her Feaver complicated richness and The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by stubborn difference. Hallie Rubenhold © Cathy Curtis 2019 The winner of the prize, who receives £50,000 ($64,117), will be announced on November 19. You can see all the shortlisted books here. The Art of Biography The Saltire Society Book of the Year Awards By Karin Roffman, BIO Vice Four biographies are among the finalists for the Saltire Society Book of the Year President Awards. In the nonfiction category, is Jane Haining: A Life of Love and Courage by Mary Mille. Up for the history award, are Alexander III: 1249–1286, First This column explores the “art of Among Equals by Norman H. Reid; and Scotland, 1846: biography” by asking questions of Living an Antislavery Life by Alasdair Pettinger; and John Law: A Scottish some of its most creative Adventurer of the Eighteenth Century by James Buchan. The Saltire Society practitioners. I recently honors books in six categories written by Scottish authors or with subjects corresponded with Carol relating to Scotland. Winners in each category receive £2,000 ($2,576) and are Sklenicka, author of the critically eligible for the overall Saltire Scottish Book of the Year, which is worth £5,000 acclaimed biography Raymond ($6,440). Winners will be announced on November 30. You can see all the Carver: A Writer’s Life (Scribner, finalists in each category here. 2009). She has a new biography— Alice Adams: Portrait of a Writer —due out December 3. Below is a condensed version of our Obituaries interview.

Ulick O’Connor Ulick O’Connor, a historian and poet, died October 7, in Dublin. He was 90. A Dublin native, O’Connor excelled in sports before studying and then practicing law for many years. He then turned to a literary career, frequently contributing to several Irish newspapers. In 1963, O’Connor published an authorized biography of fellow Irish writer Oliver St. John Gogarty. His other books included biographies of Brendan Behan and Michael Collins and All the Olympians: A Biographical Portrait of the Irish Literary .

Ed Cray Ed Cray, a journalist who published almost 20 history books and biographies, died October 8, in Palo Alto, California. He was 86. Born in Cleveland, Cray moved to with his family and was hired for his first newspaper job as a copy boy at the Los Angeles Daily News. After a stint in the army and earning a degree in anthropology, Cray wrote for a number Carol Sklenicka of publications in California and later contributed to The Washington Post and The Photo by Katherine Ryan New York Times. He also taught for many years at the Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism at the University of Southern California. The Karin Roffman: You said subjects of Cray’s biographies included George C. Marshall and Earl Warren. His something wonderful at the panel Ramblin’ Man: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie served as the source for a we were on together at last year’s PBS documentary about the folk singer. conference about a subject I had just then been mulling over: the Michael Mott crucial importance to a biography Michal Mott, best known as a poet and novelist, died October 11, in . He of the realization and skillful was 88. narration of simultaneities. I’m Born in London to a British father and American mother, Mott studied in calling this practice the “art of England and the United States before beginning his literary career as the editor of simultaneity” because uncovering fine art books. He published his first poetry collection in 1957. In 1966, Mott these moments of connection moved to the United States to teach at Kenyon College and become poetry editor matters much more than just of The Kenyan Review. He also taught at Emory College and Bowling Green recognizing coincidences. University. In 1978, Mott was chosen to write the authorized biography of Thomas Understanding these relations can Merton. The bestselling book, published in 1984, was a finalist for the Pulitzer generate genuine emotional drive Prize for Biography. within the narrative, turning fact into feeling. Nick Tosches How do you think about these Nick Tosches, a novelist and rock music critic, died October 20, in . He kinds of moments? How would was 69. you describe the realization that Starting in 1969, Tosches wrote for a number of magazines devoted to rock two seemingly separate events in music, including and Creem. His first book was an assessment of your subject’s life are, in fact, lesser-known country music performers. Tosches published his first biography of a intricately connected? single subject in 1982—Hellfire: The Story. In later biographies, his subjects ranged from Sonny Liston to Dean Martin. Carol Sklenicka: A poem titled “Out of Research into Reveries” appeared in my email this morning just as I was considering Writer's Life your question. (“Out of Research into Reveries,” by Mei Der Vang, The Books Today’s Readers Will Never Read Poem-a-Day, October 21, 2019.) Margaret Atwood has written a book that current That’s just a coincidence, right? Handmaid’s Tale fans will never see. That’s because her But to me it’s meaningful. As a Scribbler’s Moon, written in 2014, is part of the Future biographer imagining another Library. The project, started by Katie Paterson, has writers produce new books that person’s life (impossible to do, will be stored in Oslo’s public library. One author is chosen each year to but that’s what one is trying to contribute; they can write in any genre including biography. The books won’t be do), you must research everything available to patrons for 100 years. Paterson is a Scottish artist whose website says and make a chronology of datable her art has “a Romantic sensibility with a research-based approach, conceptual events. Then what? If you do it rigour and coolly minimalist presentation . . . [that] collapses the distance between thoroughly, you’ll have a very the viewer and the most distant edges of time and the cosmos.” She told the long document, links to sources, website Stylist that “the idea came years ago. I was drawing tree rings in a notes on your own reactions. notebook and I saw a vision of tree rings chapters, then becoming paper, That’s when reverie comes in. and finally becoming a book. I never could have imagined the idea would come Your reverie is to find the off the page and become a real thing over the 100-year duration that it has.” Paper “intricately connected” aspects for the books—there will also be digital versions—comes from trees in a that make this a life rather than a Norwegian forest. list—as a biographer you must A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling become the perceiver of of serenity. connections—practicing what you —André Maurois call the art of simultaneity. (In The Poetics of Reverie, Gaston Bachelard discusses reverie as the Member News and Notes relation between the imagining consciousness and the world. A TBC missed the publication earlier this year of biographer is an imagining W. C. Fields from Sound Film and Radio consciousness for the world of her Comedy to Stardom: Becoming a Cultural Icon subject.) Sure, you have an by Arthur Frank Wertheim. Coming out this observer bias, but if you are month are Revolutionary Brothers: Thomas sufficiently open-minded and non- Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the judgmental, it’s a bias that allows Friendship that Helped Forge Two Nations by you to see more clearly, as reverie Tom Chaffin and A New Orleans Author in does. Mark Twain’s Court: Letters from Grace King’s At the point when you begin New England Sojourns by Miki Pfeffer. Miki to write a narrative you make recently spoke at the Louisiana Book Festival. choices—omissions, of course, but New in paperback this month are The Man you also make juxtapositions that Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and W. C. Fields from Sound Film become connections. Clearly, that Tragic Fall of William Fox by Vanda Krefft and Radio Comedy to Stardom emailed poem was a random and The Improbable Wendell Willkie: The is the last volume in Arthur Frank answer to my dilemma—but for Businessman Who Saved the Republican Party Wertheim’s trilogy of the film me it became significant because comedian’s life. and His Country, and Conceived a New World it arrived in my mind when I by . Three BIO needed it. It felt true. Somehow— members top the list of titles sold to publishers last month: Bernice Lerner, with and this is the artistic part—you All the Horrors of War: A Jewish Girl, a British Doctor, and the Liberation of make connections between facts Bergen-Belsen, a dual biography of Barbara’s mother, Rachel Genuth (a and impressions (from others) in survivor of Bergen-Belsen), and Brigadier H. L. Glyn Hughes; Allison Gilbert the chronology of your subject’s (and coauthor Julia Scheeres), with a biography of Elsie Robinson, one of life. Narrated with strong prose, America’s most beloved newspaper writers of the 20th century and a renegade who these connections move a story spread new ideas about women’s progress and social empowerment; and Laurie forward. Gwen Shapiro, with Amelia and George, about Amelia Earhart and George P. KR: Can you give an example or Putnam. Laurie discussed her previous book, The Stowaway: A Young Man’s two from your books of this “art Extraordinary Adventure to Antarctica on the Brigham Young University radio of simultaneity”—or the word or show, Constant Wonder. Bob Batchelor may be the hardest-working man in the phrase you use to describe it—in book business since the release of his The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of action? George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius. His recent appearances include a talk aired by Book TV; an interview on the Creative Nonfiction podcast; and stops at CS: For a blatant example, I’ll Cincinnati’s Books by the Banks festival, Louisville’s Filson Historical Society, offer the introduction to my and the Friends of the Oxford Lane Library Annual Meeting, held in Oxford, biography of Raymond Carver. As Ohio. Working with Rookwood Pottery, Bob also recently wrote the script and I studied my chronology, I selected images for (and narrated) a short documentary about Maria Longworth realized that on the day after his Storer, the founder of Rookwood. Bob noted on Facebook, “Storer is by all first book was published, Carver accounts the first woman in American history to found a large manufacturing had appeared in court on charges company in the US.” (The 140th anniversary of Rookwood’s founding will be of fraud against the State of celebrated in 2020.) You can see the video here. Joseph Esposito reviewed A Hard California. Ironic, perhaps, even a Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost little funny to some people, of by Frye Gaillard for the Washington Independent Review of Books. Joseph also course, but in the reverie that spoke recently about his Dinner in Camelot: The Night America’s Greatest allowed me to feel some Scientists, Writers, and Scholars Partied at the Kennedy White House at Hooray compassion for my subject, I for Books! in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. NPR’s Fresh Air rebroadcast an sensed something deeper. I looked interview with Claire Tomalin, which you can listen to here. again at all the perspectives I had discussed her Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder at on that event and found that various locations around Jefferson County, Missouri. Andrew Marble spoke about Carver’s daughter, his first wife, his Boy on the Bridge: The Story of John Shalikashvili’s American Success at the and some of his friends had all Association of the United States Army annual conference in Washington, D.C. He given me pieces of the scene: a wrote an op-ed piece about his subject for The Hill. man hitting bottom and at the same time on top of his world.

We recently wrote about KR: Can you share any writerly Kitty Kelley’s donation of techniques that you use to express her library of biographical these kinds of moments with extra works to the Leon Levy care or skill? Center for Biography. In the picture to the left, Kitty CS: With nudges from fine stands in front of just a small editors, I’ve trimmed certain part of the collection, with moments down to essentials. For Kai Bird, the center’s my biography of Alice Adams, I executive director. Brian Jay took a moment from her personal Jones spoke about his subject, life that she ended up writing , at the University about often in her short fiction. I of Maryland. Henson was an had to recognize its importance, alumnus of the school. In her but in narrating it I also had to article “Great Books About the Space Race: A Reading List from the Moonrise dramatize it within the limits of Podcast,” Washington Post’s Lillian Cunningham singled out three books by two sticking with sources—yet the drama already exists in the BIO members: American Moonshot by and Master of the Senate chronology. and The Passage of Power by Robert Caro. You can see the complete list here. At The chronology told me that the Coronado Historical Association in California, Heath Lee opened an exhibit just weeks before she gave birth to based on her The League of Wives: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on her son, Adams received a the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home. While in Coronado, she also rejection of a novel manuscript. spoke to the Naval Aviator Spouses Club on North Island Naval Base. Back in her As a new mother in her 20s, she home state of Virginia, Heath spoke at Richmond’s Tuckahoe Woman’s Club. C. weathered that setback pretty M. Mayo’s article, “John Bigelow, Jr.: Officer in the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, Military easily. But 15 years later, Adams Intellectual, and Nexus Between the West and the Eastern Establishment,” appeared was in complete despair in volume 30 of the Journal of Big Bend Studies. A recent edition of The Times (according to a letter I tracked Literary Supplement referenced Karen Christensen’s article, “Hidden Lives, down in an obscure German Hidden Wives,” in a piece on the value of authors acknowledging others and the archive) on the evening before she frequency with which wives’ contributions have traditionally been ignored. Marc learned that New American Leepson discussed his Saving Monticello: The Levy Family’s Epic Quest to Rescue Library would purchase what the House that Jefferson Built at the Levy Chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy. He would become her first published was also the keynote speaker at the Southern Jewish Historical Society’s annual novel, Careless Love. So, “from conference, held in Charlottesville, Virginia. On October 26, 2019, Patricia Bell- research to reverie”: I had to feel Scott gave a paper titled “Lillian Smith and Pauli Murray: Notes on a Friendship and imagine the similar situations and Literary Mentorship” at the Lillian E. Smith Symposium on Arts and Social with different outcomes. I used Change at Piedmont College in Athens, Georgia. As part of the Massachusetts quotations from the letter and a Historical Society’s New England Biography Series, was in crisp, direct narration to conversation with Sidney Blumenthal. Eric K. Washington spoke about his Boss emphasize her despair and then of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central her elation. That’s the art of it. Terminal at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. You can watch KR: You’ve written about D. H. the talk here. Andrew Lownie was interviewed by The New Indian Express about Lawrence, Raymond Carver, and his The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves. Jack El-Hai launched his new book, now on Alice Adams. You seem to The Lost Brothers: A Family’s Decades-Long Search, in St. Paul, Minnesota. The like writing about writers. Why is event featured the showing of a trailer for “Long Lost,” a podcast Jack produced that? Do you think biographies of with Twin Cities PBS based on the book. Jack also discussed the book at Next writers require a particular set of Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul. Congratulations to Patti Marxsen: her biography skills to create? of Haitian icon Jacques Roumain has won the 2019 Haitian Studies Association Book Prize. Jacques Roumain: A Life of Resistance shared the honors this year CS: Writing about writers came with two other books, a historical study by Marlene Daut and an anthropological naturally for me because I began work by Jeffrey S. Kahn. my intellectual life as an English major; later, I studied literature with Naomi Lebowitz. In a time

Send Us Your News! when biographical criticism was drastically unpopular, she set an example for having a passionate In Stores relationship with texts and making connections among authors’ lives, historical contexts, and literature. I also studied with writers of literature, poet Howard Nemerov and novelist Stanley Elkin. Literary biography offers special problems and benefits for a biographer. Your subject’s oeuvre is an essential line of research as you make your connections. Whether your author’s work is autobiographical or not, it was made by this person. I am quite dissatisfied by biographies of writers that do not consider their literary work . A New Orleans Author in Mark Twain’s Revolutionary Brothers: Thomas Jefferson, In most cases the work is the Court: Letters from Grace King’s New the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Friendship reason for the biography, but it’s England Sojourns that Helped Forge Two Nations also the best avenue for edited by Miki Pfeffer by Tom Chaffin (LSU Press) (St. Martin’s Press) understanding the person’s inner life. One of my tactics is to look W. C. Fields from Sound Film and Radio Horace Greeley: Print, Politics, and the closely at source material (e.g., Comedy to Stardom: Becoming a Cultural Failure of American Nationhood Adams’s life in Madison, Icon by James M. Lundberg Wisconsin in 1940) and the by Arthur Frank Wertheim (Johns Hopkins University Press) fictional transformation of that (Palgrave Macmillan) Thomas Mann’s War: Literature, Politics, time. It’s very telling. You can see Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the and the World Republic of Letters how the author used her Age of Trump by Tobias Boes imagination. by Kate Andersen Brower (Cornell University Press) (Harper) KR: Please tell us a bit about your The Salamanca Diaries: Father McCabe and new book on Alice Adams. The King: The Dangerous Game the Spanish Civil War of Kim Jong Un by Tim Fanning CS: Alice Adams: Portrait of a by Chung Min Lee (Merrion Press) Writer exemplifies (I hope) (All Points) everything I’m talking about and Franz Boas: The Emergence of the some of what those teachers All Blood Runs Red: The Legendary Life Anthropologist taught me. Adams (1926–1999) of Eugene Bullard—Boxer, Pilot, Soldier, by Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt was a terrifically vital woman Spy (University of Nebraska Press) by Phil Keith and Tom Clavin who felt deeply and combined a (Hanover Square) Michael Snow: Lives and Works richly complicated, often painful by James King emotional life with an ambitious Mary Ball Washington: The Untold Story (Dundurn) intellectual and artistic life—and of George Washington’s Mother made it all work. My subtitle by Craig Shirley The Wonders: The Extraordinary Performers alludes to Isabel Archer in Henry (Harper) Who Transformed the Victorian Age by John Woolf James’s novel The Portrait of a The Mutual Admiration Society: How (Pegasus Books) Lady, an American girl who wants Dorothy L. Sayers and Her Oxford Circle to choose her own identity. Taken Remade the World for Women The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican altogether, Adams’s work and life by Mo Moulton Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for explore the question of what a (Basic Books) a New England woman could be and do in the by Peter C. Mancall In That Time: Michael O’Donnell and the (Yale University Press) American 20th century. Tragic Era of Vietnam KR: Is it too soon to ask you by Daniel H. Weiss Howard Thurman: Philosophy, Civil Rights, (PublicAffairs) and the Search for Common Ground what’s next? by Kipton E. Jensen CS: It is too soon to ask what I’m Ian McKellen: A Biography (University of South Carolina Press) by Garry O’Connor doing next. I’d like to teach (St. Martin’s Press) Rameses III, King of Egypt: His Life and biography writing. I’d like to Afterlife learn more about the natural Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge by Aidan Dodson environment where I live and do by Sheila Weller (The American University in Press) what I can to protect that. I’d like (Sarah Crichton) to visit my grandchildren and son Citizen Countess: Sofia Panina and the Fate The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith of Revolutionary Russia and daughter more often. I’d like Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM by Adele Lindenmeyr to write a short biography (but I by Toni Natalie and Chet Hardin (University of Wisconsin Press) don’t seem to do short very well), (Grand Central Publishing) and I am thinking about a couple An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean: Antarctic of subjects, but it seems too soon Jay-Z: Made in America Survivor to decide. by by Michael Smith (St. Martin’s Press) (Gill Books)

Metternich: Strategist and Visionary Swimming Upstream: Laxmanshastri Joshi BIO's Board of by Wolfram Siemann, translated by Daniel and the Evolution of Modern India Directors Steuer by Arundhati C. Khandkar and Ashok C. (Belknap Press) Khandkar Linda Leavell, President (Oxford University Press) Karin Roffman, Vice Irving Berlin: New York Genius President by James Kaplan The Girl in the Photograph: The True Story Marc Leepson, Treasurer (Yale University Press) of a Native American Child, Lost and Found Louise (Lucy) W. , in America Secretary Walter Ralegh: Architect of Empire by Byron L. Dorgan Kai Bird by Alan Gallay (Thomas Dunne Books) Deirdre David (Basic Books) Carla Kaplan Battling Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Kitty Kelley Agent Jack: The True Story of MI5’s Abzug Sarah Kilborne Secret Nazi Hunter by Leandra Ruth Zarnow Dean King by Robert Hutton ( Press) Heath Lee (St. Martin’s Press) Anne Boyd Rioux Aaron Hernandez’s Killing Fields: Exposing Justin Spring Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers: Untold Murders, Violence, Cover-Ups, and The Texas Victory That Changed the NFL’s Shocking Code of Silence Billy Tooma American History by Dylan Howard Marlene Trestman by Brian Kilmeade (Skyhorse) Sonja Williams (Sentinel) King Charles: The Man, the Monarch, and Advisory Council The Man Who Solved the Market: How the Future of Britain

Jim Simons Launched the Quant by Robert Jobson , Chair Revolution (Diversion Books) by Gregory Zuckerman Taylor Branch (Portfolio) Giannozzo Manetti: The Life of a Florentine Douglas Brinkley Humanist Robert Caro Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving by David Marsh by Mo Rocca (Harvard University Press) Ron Chernow (Simon & Schuster) Tim Duggan World of Trouble: A Philadelphia Quaker Amanda Foreman Not Afraid: The Evolution of Eminem Family’s Journey through the American by Anthony Bozza Revolution Irwin Gellman (Da Capo Press) by Richard Godbeer Annette Gordon-Reed (Yale University Press) Michael Holroyd Inside Trump’s White House: The Real Story of His Presidency Richard III: The Self-Made King Eric Lax by Doug Wead by Michael Hicks David Levering Lewis (Center Street) (Yale University Press) Andrew Lownie

Desk 88: Eight Progressive Senators Who Shatner Megan Marshall Changed America by Michael Seth Starr by Sherrod Brown (Applause) Alice Mayhew (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Saboteur: The Untold Story of SOE’s The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the Youngest Agent at the Heart of the French Marion Meade FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Resistance Andrew Morton Man Caught in the Middle by Mark Seaman by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen (John Blake) Arnold Rampersad (Abrams Press) Hans Renders George Washington’s Nemesis: The Stacy Schiff The Crown: The Official Companion, Outrageous Treason and Unfair Court Volume 2: Political Scandal, Personal Martial of Major General Charles Lee Martin J. Sherwin Struggle, and the Years that Defined during the American Revolution Gayfryd Steinberg Elizabeth II (1956–1977) by Christian McBurney T.J. Stiles by Robert Lacey (Savas Beatie) (Crown) Jean Strouse Harriet Tubman: A Life in American History Will Swift Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of by Kerry Walters Baseball’s Greatest Forgotten Player (ABC-CLIO) by Jeremy Beer Terry Teachout (University of Nebraska Press) Hot Spot of Invention: Charles Stark Draper, Ike Williams MIT, and the Development of Inertial Western Portraits: The Unsung Heroes & Guidance and Navigation Villains of the Silver Screen by Thomas Wildenberg by Steve Carver and C. Courtney Joyner (Naval Institute Press) The Biographer's Craft (Edition Olms) Spreading the Gospel of Books: Essae M. Ralph Lauren: In His Own Fashion Culver and the Genesis of Louisiana Parish Editor by Alan Flusser Libraries Michael Burgan (Abrams) by Florence M. Jumonville (LSU Press) Consulting Editor The Other “Hermit” of Thoreau’s Walden James McGrath Morris Pond: The Sojourn of Edmond Stuart Lewis Milestone: Life and Films Hotham by Harlow Robinson Copy Editor by Terry Barkley (University Press of Kentucky) Margaret Moore Booker (Savas Beatie)

I Wonder U: How Prince Went Beyond Race She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of and Back Correspondents Harriet Tubman by Adilifu Nama United Kingdom by Erica Armstrong Dunbar ( Press) Andrew Lownie (37 Ink) Chancers: Scandal, Blackmail, and the Netherlands Oklahoma’s Atticus: An Innocent Man and Enigma Code Hans Renders the Lawyer Who Fought for Him by Barbara Jeffery by Hunter Howe Cates (Amberley Publishing) India (University of Nebraska Press) Ashok R. Chandran Kitchener: The Man Not the Myth (From American Disruptor: The Scandalous Life Musket to Maxim 1815–1914) Australia/New Zealand of Leland Stanford by Anne Samson Todd Nicholls by Roland de Wolk (Helion and Company) (University of California Press) United States The World of Juliette Kinzie: Chicago before Pat McNees Abraham Joshua Heschel: Mind, Heart, the Fire (Washington, D.C.) Soul by Ann Durkin Keating by Edward K. Kaplan ( Press) Dona Munker (University of Nebraska Press) Jane Lincoln Taylor King of Fighters: Nikolay Polikarpov and His (New York) The Lost World of DeMille Aircraft Designs by John Kobal by Mikhail Maslov Felicity O. Yost (University Press of Mississippi) (Helion and Company) (Hawai’i)

Black Radical: The Life and Times of The Austen Girls: The Story of Jane & To contact any of our correspondents, William Monroe Trotter Cassandra Austen, the Closest of Sisters click here. by Kerri K. Greenidge by Helen Amy (Liveright) (Amberley Publishing)

Becoming C. S. Lewis: A Biography of More Than Just A Good Life: The Authorised Young Jack Lewis (1898–1918) Biography of Richard Briers by Harry Lee Poe by James Hogg (Crossway Books) (Constable)

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Amanuensis

Amanuensis: A person whose employment is to write what another dictates, or to copy what another has written. Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913).

The source notes of the two volumes of my biography [of ] give details of the materials that I found in the dozens of different collections that I consulted in the British Library. Let me add one personal memory here. The BL contained a small collection of the papers of Henry Polak, a Jewish radical who had worked closely with Gandhi in South Africa. These included some letters from Gandhi to Polak that were not in The Collected Works, written shortly before he was arrested in the of 1913. This was an exciting and important discovery; the problem was that they were handwritten, and Gandhi’s hand was, in all of its three languages, extremely hard to decipher. Reading these letters, I could not easily distinguish ‘l’ from ‘t’ and ‘c’ from ‘o’. Fortunately, in the seat next to me was a young scholar who worked with medieval manuscripts in English, Hindi, Sanskrit, and Persian, and was thus particularly well equipped to make sense of strange handwriting. I asked her to come help me, and she did. Her name was Supriya Gandhi, daughter of Rajmohan of that ilk, and who was then doing a Ph.D. at Harvard. So it was a great-granddaughter of Gandhi who helped me decipher some rare, unpublished, letters written by Gandhi and now housed in the British Library. It was a juxtaposition which delighted me, and would surely have delighted Gandhi too. [more]

“Ramachandra Guha, A Biographer’s Journey: In Search of the Mahatma”

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