Biographers, start your engines
Source: Boston Globe (Original Article)
Alex Beam
Biographers, start your engines
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Alex Beam
Globe Columnist
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June 17, 2008
I couldn’t help noting that award-winning University of Massachusetts biographer Nigel Hamilton has just written not one but two books about biography, the latest being “How to Do Biography: A Primer.” So I shot Hamilton an e-mail: What biographies are out there, asking to be written?Hamilton pointed out that publishers generally opt for safe choices, favoring the X-thousandth take on Lincoln’s fondness for pets over a riskier, more original work. “I do wish, as the American empire winds down, we’d show a little more interest in the biographies of foreign figures,” Hamilton added. “Among foreign individuals we’ve had Napoleon, Nehru, and Mao; but what of Mehmet Ali, Annie Besant, Subhas Bose, Reza Shah, Abel Gance, and Massimo Troisi? The field is ripe with fascinating lives to explore . . . if only we are willing to look beyond our borders.”As Alex Trebek would say, that wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but I will accept it. I was hoping that Hamilton would name someone a little closer to home. Jean Strouse plucked Alice James off the bough of history; no one knew she was there. I think the right biographer might do the same for Maud McVeigh Hutchins, the mildly neurasthenic American mid-century novelist.Next I rang up Justin Kaplan, author of acclaimed biographies of Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. Who needs to be done? Kurt Vonnegut, he answered. “That’s the biography I’m looking for.”That one is already in the works. Charles Shields, the author of “Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee,” started working with Vonnegut about a year before the author’s death. Kurt’s son Mark, a pediatrician and a writer, didn’t sound over the moon about the whole prospect. “I think Justin Kaplan is probably a better biographer,” he said. “If I had a point to make it would be: Read MasterCard Credit Card the writer and let the biographies …continue reading