Spring Books – 2013

February 5th, 2013

JANUARY
Johnson and Boswell: A Biography of Friendship by John B. Radner (Yale University Press)
The Watchful Clothier: The Life of an Eighteenth-Century Protestant Capitalist by Matthew Kadane (Yale University Press)
Ravel by Roger Nichols (Yale University Press)
George II: King and Elector by Andrew C. Thompson (Yale University Press)
Hawthorne’s Habitations: A Literary Life by Robert Milder (Oxford University Press)
The Pinecone: The Story of Sarah Losh, Forgotten Romantic Heroine—Antiquarian, Architect, and Visionary by Jenny Uglow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Nancy: The Story of Lady Astor by Adrian Fort (St. Martin’s Press)
The Inventor and the Tycoon: A Gilded Age Murder and the Birth of Moving Pictures by Edward Ball (Doubleday)
Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens by Richard Seymour (Verso)
Lee Marvin: Point Blank by Dwayne Epstein (Schaffner Press, Inc.)
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis (Beacon Press)
Davis McCaughey: A Life by Sarah Martin (University of New South Wales Press)
Soldier of Christ: The Life of Pope Pius XII by Robert A. Ventresca (Belknap Press)
Congressman Lincoln by Chris DeRose (Threshold Editions)
Declaring His Genius: Oscar Wilde in North America by Roy Morris (Belknap Press)

FEBRUARY
Ike and Dick: Portrait of a Strange Political Marriage by Jeffrey Frank (Simon & Schuster)
Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science by Christoph Irmscher (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Best-Kept Boy in the World: The Life and Loves of Denny Fouts by Arthur Vanderbilt (Magnus Books)
Whitey: The Life of America’s Most Notorious Mob Boss by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill (Crown)
The Force of Things: A Marriage in War and Peace by Alexander Stille (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Maverick Genius: The Pioneering Odyssey of Freeman Dyson by Phillip F. Schewe (Thomas Dunne Books)
The Last Love of George Sand: A Literary Biography by Evelyne Bloch-Dano (Arcade Publishing)
A Game of Three Halves: The Official Kenny Swain Biography by Brian Beard (Pitch Publishing)
The Master of Us All: Balenciaga, His Workrooms, His World by Mary Blume (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Last Outlaws: The Lives and Legends of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid by Thom Hatch (Penguin Group)
Classic Modern: The Art Worlds of Joseph Pulitzer Jr. by Marjorie B. Cohn (Harvard Art Museums)
George Liele’s Life and Legacy: An Unsung Hero by David T. Shannon, Sr. & Julia Frazier White (Mercer University Press)

MARCH
American Hipster: A Life of Herbert Huncke, The Times Square Hustler Who Inspired the Beat Movement by Hilary Holladay (Magnus Books)
The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych by Doug Wilson (Thomas Dunne Books)
Here I Am: The Story of Tim Hetherington, War Photographer by Alan Huffman (Grove Press)
Young Titan: The Making of Winston Churchill by Michael Shelden (Simon & Schuster)
Lady at the O.K. Corral: The True Story of Josephine Marcus Earp by Ann Kirschner (Harper)
Olivia Manning: A Woman at War by Deirdre David (Oxford University Press)
Lina and Serge: The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev by Simon Morrison (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Hopper: A Journey into the American Dream by Tom Folsom (It Books)
C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet by Alister McGrath (Tyndale House Publishers)
Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life by Jonathan Sperber (Liveright)
The House of Redgrave: The Lives of a Theatrical Dynasty by Tim Adler (Aurum Press)

APRIL
The Philosopher, the Priest, and the Painter: A Portrait of Descartes by Steven Nadler (Princeton University Press)
Peter Cushing: A Life in Film by David Miller (Titan Books)
Polka King: The Life and Times of Polka Music’s Living Legend by Jimmy Sturr (BenBella Books)
Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman by Jeremy Adelman (Princeton University Press)
Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt by Saul Friedlander (Yale University Press)
First Son: The Biography of Richard M. Daley by Keith Koeneman (University of Chicago Press)
Augie’s Secrets: The Minneapolis Mob and the King of the Hennepin Strip by Neal Karlen
(Minnesota Historical Society Press)
The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England’s Most Notorious Queen by Susan Bordo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Nailed!: The Improbable Rise and Spectacular Fall of Lenny Dykstra by Christopher Frankie (Running Press)
Shadow Warrior: William Egan Colby and the CIA by Randall B. Woods (Basic Books)

MAY
Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson (Princeton University Press)
Permanent Present Tense: The Unforgettable Life of the Amnesic Patient, H.M. by Suzanne Corkin (Basic Books)
Nâzim Hikmet: The Life and Times of Turkey’s World Poet by Mutlu Konuk Blasing (Persea)
Uncommon Youth: The Gilded Life and Tragic Times of J. Paul Getty III by Charles Fox (St. Martin’s Press)
Thomas Aquinas: A Portrait by Denys Turner (Yale University Press)
Noel Gallagher: The Biography by Lucian Randall (John Blake)
Why Always Me?: The Biography of Mario Balotelli by Frank Worrall (John Blake)
Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins by Julia M. Allen (SUNY Press)
All the Great Prizes: The Life of John Hay, from Lincoln to Roosevelt by John Taliaferro (Simon & Schuster)
The DiMaggios by Tom Clavin (Ecco)
Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology by Edward H. Burtt & William E. Davis (Belknap Press)
Edmund Burke: The First Conservative by Jesse Norman (Basic Books)
Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center by Ray Monk (Doubleday)
Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It or Not!” Ripley by Neal Thompson (Crown Archetype)
James J. Kilpatrick: Salesman for Segregation by William P. Hustwit (The University of North Carolina Press)
Josephus Daniels: His Life and Times by Lee Craig (University of North Carolina Press)
Arthur Erickson: An Architect’s Life by David Stouck (Douglas & McIntyre)

JUNE
Kafka: The Years of Insight by Reiner Stach & Shelley Frisch (Princeton University Press)
Dreadful: The Short Life and Gay Times of John Horne Burns by David Margolick (Other Press)
George Washington: The Crossing by Jack E Levin & Mark R. Levin (Threshold Editions)
Gloria Swanson: The Ultimate Star by Stephen Michael Shearer & Jeanine Basinger ( Thomas Dunne Books)
Queen Bee of Tuscany: The Redoubtable Janet Ross by Ben Downing (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo by Scott D. Seligman ( Hong Kong University Press)
Dashiell Hammett: Man of Mystery by Sally Cline (Arcade Publishing)
Nelson: The Sword of Albion by John Sugden (Henry Holt and Co.)
Churchill’s White Rabbit: The True Story of a Real-life James Bond by Sophie Jackson (The History Press)

JULY
The Red Man’s Bones: George Catlin, Artist and Showman by Benita Eisler (W. W. Norton & Company)
Full Steam Ahead!: The Life and Art of Ward Kimball by Amid Amidi (Chronicle Books)
Gandhi: A Spiritual Biography by Arvind Sharma (Yale University Press)
Rav Kook: Mystic in an Age of Revolution by Yehudah Mirsky (Yale University Press)
Wyatt Earp: A Vigilante Life by Andrew C. Isenberg (Hill and Wang) Late Life Jazz: The Life and Career of Rosemary Clooney by Ken Crossland & Malcolm Macfarlane (Oxford University Press)

All In: Biographers React to the Petraeus-Broadwell Affair

December 27th, 2012

Sales of All In soared after news of the scandal broke.

Readers rarely come across articles on the craft or ethics of biography in the mainstream media. There are some exceptions, of course: the publication earlier this year of the fourth volume of Robert Caro’s Lyndon Johnson biography drew major coverage in such periodicals as Esquire and Newsweek, and Caro was interviewed on CBS’s Sunday Morning.
Last month, we saw another exception to this rule. When subject and writer have an affair and that affair leads to a public scandal for the subject—a revered popular figure—the ethics of biography soar to the media forefront.
Most TBC readers are by now well aware of the details of the Paula Broadwell–David Petraeus relationship. Their affair, which took place while Broadwell was writing a biography of the CIA head and highly regarded general, sparked a speedy comedown for one of the most influential and powerful public figures of the past decade. More important to BIO members, it publicly raised the professional and ethical dilemmas biographers can face. Those dilemmas go beyond the sexual; Broadwell may have broken the law with the way she handled classified information, though she is unlikely to face any charges.
With the revelation of the affair, some reviewers’ comments about Broadwell’s gushing treatment of her subject seem a little more pointed now. Even the title of the book, All In, raised eyebrows in this new light. And given the sensational nature of the relationship, author has now become subject, as news organizations try to understand Broadwell, what led her to the respected general, how she won his trust, and why she crossed a moral line that ruined his career. (Time will tell how the scandal affects hers.)
Adding some insight was Vernon Loeb, Broadwell’s coauthor and something of a forgotten figure in all this. It was Loeb who took Broadwell’s raw notes from the field and turned them into a book, though he wrote that Broadwell “liberally” revised his text. He also noted in the Washington Post that Broadwell and Petraeus had “an unusually close relationship”—but not one he equated with an extramarital affair.
Below are more of the media’s and BIO members’ reactions to this incident and its implications for biographers in general. Feel free to share your thoughts with us.

“In the end, biographers are much like spies. They seduce their subjects into telling their secrets, which they then use for their own purposes. When they are done, they cast their subject aside, ready to move onto the next. In that sense, the relationship between the Director of the CIA and his biographer was beautifully symmetrical.”
—Emma G. Keller, biographer of Winnie Mandela, in the Guardian

“Any biography of a living, breathing and active figure who’s still at the height of his powers is going to have to strike a delicate balance between access and objectivity. It can be very tricky.”
—Tim Duggan, executive editor at HarperCollins, in the New York Times

“There are not a lot of journalists who would want to get involved in an authorized biography. If you get too close to your subject, you are nothing more than a transcriber, and readers should know that.”
—Carol Felsenthal, biographer of Katharine Graham, among others, in the New York Times

“As with psychiatrists, same with biographers, you shouldn’t sleep with your subject.”
—Blake Bailey, biographer of John Cheever, among others, in the Huffington Post

“She participated in something with her subject that reflects on his character and brings his judgment into question and she didn’t disclose it. It doesn’t even matter much what it was that she did. The real issue is the lack of disclosure of important information like that to the reader.”
—James McGrath Morris, BIO president, in Salon

“You can’t expect to be friends or bosom buddies with the person you write about. If you are, you haven’t done your job. You work for only one person, your reader. You can’t have two masters.”
—David Nasaw, BIO member, in Salon

“For me all of the attention that David Petraeus’s affair with Paula Broadwell has brought to biography seems akin to the proverbial tempest-in-a-teapot. It does not make me rethink the biographer’s relationship to her or his subject. For one thing, how much of a real biographer is Broadwell, who had to pull in a journalist to help her? This does not sound like the working biographers I know. . . . I do not think that the Petraeus-Broadwell situation tells me much about biography. However, it says a great deal about Paula Broadwell and David Petraeus.”
—Gayle Feldman, BIO member, via email

“Broadwell decided to write All In after Harvard asked her to leave the PhD program. This, and other facts coming to light, suggests that rather than looking to become a respected biographer, her main goal was to market herself and salvage her career more broadly. The takeaway from this scandal for me as a biographer? Do not let any effort at promoting my book and myself outstrip the energy I devote to producing a quality work of biography in the first place.”
—Andrew Marble, BIO member, via email

“After the Petraeus/Broadwell mess I’m even more convinced that the authorized biography with all its pureed truths is a cheat to history.”
—Kitty Kelley, BIO member, via email

“Of course, I am following the Petraeus scandal with a keen appetite—after all, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see the words ‘biographer’ and ‘sexy’ in the same sentence—but the only thought that keeps running through my mind is a self-congratulatory I-told-you: ‘See, this is why I only write about dead people!’ Given that the subject of my first book was a chronic philanderer and my second is a brothel-keeper, my husband has been enthusiastically seconding that thought.”
—Debby Applegate, BIO member, via email

2013 BIO Conference Set for NYC

November 14th, 2012

The program committee of Biographers International Organization, acting on the recommendation of the site committee, just announced that the fourth annual Compleat Biographer Conference will be held from May 17 through May 19, 2013, in New York City. The committee is still hashing out details for the conference site and the panels to be offered, as well as pre- and post-conference events; Hurricane Sandy delayed finalizing the conference site selection.

BIO president James McGrath Morris had nothing but high praise for the decision, saying the New York location should make this conference the best yet. “The response to holding it in New York City has been overwhelmingly positive,” he said. “Editors and agents are lining up to join us. Our conference has a reputation as one of the finest gatherings of writers in the country, and they won’t miss out on attending the meeting when it’s held in their backyard.”

Morris added that biographers from as far away as South America plan to attend because of the ease of reaching the city. “I’m betting that for the first time we will have to limit attendance.”

The program committee is chaired by BIO vice president Brian Jay Jones. Serving with him are Barbara Burkhardt, Cathy Curtis, Greg Daugherty, Oline Eaton, Barbara Fisher, Ted Geltner, Beverly Gray, Will Swift, and Felicity Yost. BIO members should thank them for their hard work and begin planning for a fun and informative weekend in the Big Apple.

The site committee, which handles all logistical matters relating to the conference, is still looking for members. Drop Morris a note if you live around New York and would like to help out.

Massie Embraces the Story

November 5th, 2012

by New York Correspondent Dona Munker

Robert K. Massie, a journalist and historian whose gift for vivid narrative has made him the preeminent American biographer of Russian royals, makes his job sound easy. “I am a storyteller,” he explains modestly, adding that he writes biography because “telling stories about peoplpe in the past is important to everyone trying to understand who we are and where we come from.”

Massie’s remarks came as part of the fifth annual Leon Levy Biography Lecture, held last month at the CUNY Graduate Center. The talk followed his recent winning of the 2012 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography for Catherine the Great: A Woman’s Life. Among his other literary successes, Massie’s life of Peter the Great won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize, while Nicholas and Alexandra was a durable New York Times bestseller.

Massie told the audience that the biographer whose aim is to “fully embrace the story being told” will find himself working with three key ingredients. The first of these, he said, is relevance. The reader must have the sense that the life under study is important because it is “part of a chain that affects his own life.” This sense of connection may simply be the result of the subject’s fame or the fame of the times in which she or he lived. Conveying that sense of relevance, however, is vital for holding the reader’s interest. Continue Reading…