American BiographyiUniverse, 2006 M02 22 - 302 pages This collection of reviews, selected from Rollyson's New York Sun column, is as much about the romance of biography as it is about the American lives. Certain concerns resonate throughout the book: the American left's failure to reckon with Communist subversion, McCarthyism, and Stalinism, the problematic nature of authorized biography, the history of American biography, definitive biographies, literary biography, the differences between autobiography and biography, the importance of interviews in biographies of contemporary figures, the differences between history and biography, comparative biographies, the virtues of short biographies and of biographies for children, the tendency of biographers to fictionalize and of novelists to biographize, psychology and biography, Rollyson's own experience as a biographer, and the way biographers treat one another's work. Too many biographers, he believes, evince no interest in the biographical tradition. Concerned only with possession of their subjects, their proprietorial attitude deforms not only their biographies but also the genre itself. If biography is reviewed badly (receiving hardly more than a summary of the subject's life with a perfunctory nod to the biographer), it is because the biographical tradition has been disregarded or discounted. This book, in other words, has been written on the behalf of biography, a genre that still awaits a full vindication. |
Contents
ELIZABETH BISHOP AND LOTA DE MACEDO SOARES | 13 |
BILL CLINTON | 26 |
JONATHAN EDWARDS | 42 |
ZELDA FITZGERALD | 57 |
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN | 64 |
ARSHILE GORKY | 72 |
ALEXANDER HAMILTON | 78 |
LILLIAN HELLMAN | 85 |
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS | 172 |
GREGORY PECK | 178 |
POCAHONTAS | 185 |
RONALD REAGAN | 192 |
KENNETH REXROTH | 199 |
THEODORE ROOSEVELT | 207 |
HENRY ROTH | 214 |
CARL SANDBURG | 220 |
PATRICIA HIGHSMITH | 93 |
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS | 101 |
HENRY JAMES | 107 |
JOHN JAY | 114 |
WELDON KEES | 120 |
CANADA LEE | 127 |
ABRAHAM LINCOLN | 133 |
CAROLE LOMBARD | 142 |
AUDRE LORD | 148 |
MICHAEL MCGIVNEY | 156 |
MARGARET MEAD AND RUTH BENEDICT | 159 |
LEE MILLER | 166 |
BETTY SHABAZZ | 228 |
JEAN STAFFORD | 234 |
EDWARD TELLER | 241 |
CLARENCE THOMAS | 244 |
MARK TWAIN | 251 |
GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THOMAS JEFFERSON | 257 |
MARTHA WASHINGTON | 263 |
EUDORA WELTY | 269 |
WOODROW WILSON | 276 |
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT | 282 |
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acknowledges American Arshile Gorky artist Audubon believed Betty Shabazz biog biogra biographer’s biography Bowles Brookhiser called career character Clinton Coffin Colson Communist critics definitive difficult Dreiser EDWARD HOPPER Edwards Edwards’s example Farrell father Faulkner fiction field figure film find fine first Franklin friends Gellhorn genre Gordon Gorky H. L. MENCKEN Hamilton Hemingway Henry James Highsmith historian Hopper husband interviews James’s Jefferson John JOHN JAMES AUDUBON Kaplan Kazan Kennedy Lillian Hellman Lincoln literary literature lives Marilyn Monroe Mark Twain marriage Martha Martha Gellhorn McCarthy McCarthy’s McGivney Mencken Morris narrative never novel novelist office Oppenheimer Paul Bowles pher Plath Poe’s poet political portrait President Professor Dallek readers reviewers Rexroth role Ronald Reagan Roosevelt Ross seems sense Shriver significant Soviet Stafford story Sylvia Sylvia Plath tion Tubman wanted Washington Welty wife Wilson woman women words writing wrote Zelda