A Life in Biography

Latest Episodes:

How I became an outlaw biographer Nov 07, 2020

Show notes

Working on Lillian Hellman, Martha Gellhorn, Norman Mailer, Rebecca West, Susan Sontag, Jill Craigie, Michael Foot, Dana Andrews, Walter Brennan, Amy Lowell, Sylvia Plath, William Faulkner.

Episode 30: The Biographical Novel: Who Cares? Oct 31, 2020

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I discuss novels about Marilyn Monroe, Walt Disney, Martha Gellhorn, H. G. Wells and mull over a universe in which biography and biographical novels can co-exist.

Episode 29: The Biography Police Oct 24, 2020

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An account of the campaigns orchestrated against biographers, using as examples biographies of T. E. Lawrence and Susan Sontag.

Reading and Writing Biography: A Primer Oct 17, 2020

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The sorry state of reviewing biography as reviewers turns in what amounts to book reports, letting down the genre of biography and those who practice it.

What a biographer knows. Oct 10, 2020

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I read and discuss a section from The Life of William Faulkner, pointing out my use of evidence, and concluding that I am my own best evidence.

What is a definitive biography? Oct 03, 2020

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I consider the question in the light of biographies of Sylvia Plath, William Faulkner, Olson Welles, John F. Kennedy, and others.

The Cruelty of Biography Sep 26, 2020

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A wide ranging discussion of the anathemas against biography perpetuated by modern writers, including Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Somerset Maugham, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Anthony Powell.

Episode 24: Psychologizing Biography Sep 19, 2020

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What does Psychologizing biography mean? How I have used it.

Reviewing Biography: The Case of Sylvia Plath Sep 12, 2020

Show notes

I read a review of my book, The Last Days of Sylvia Plath, in order to discuss the methodology of biography and of the reviewer.

Episode 22: The Case Against Biography Sep 05, 2020

Show notes

What to say about the epistemology of biography and why it is sometimes better to not have been there, but to see it all from afar and yet in closeup, as the past is recreated in the biographer’s imagination.

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