FACE IT: The Biographer’s Challenge
By Michele Willens
I once wrote a piece for HuffPost entitled “Who Gets to Write a Memoir?” it was spurred by the news that Justin Bieber—I think he was 17—had been signed to write his. I have just read a new book, “The Shadow In The Garden: A Biographer’s Tale” (published by Pantheon) by James Atlas, and I don’t need to ask “who gets to write a biography?” Nor do I need to ask, “who gets to have a biographer write about them?” This book persuasively answers those questions and much much more.
Atlas, with incredible knowledge of all things literary, and with self-deprecating (almost self-lacerating at times) wit and wisdom, gives us the history of the biography form itself: yes, the Greeks had them, the Victorians raised them to a new level, and no one--with the possible exception of Boswell on Johnson-- has ever written one that has not at some point been questioned, criticized, or eventually improved upon. (“You could never get it all down. The story would always remain unfinished. It was a hazard of the trade,” writes Atlas)
The author gives us every detail of his two (mostly) well-received attempts, the first on the largely unknown poet Delmore Schwartz (which he wrote in his mid 20s) and the other on the literary lion Saul Bellow. The Bellow bio took Atlas more than a decade, and while he never got official authorization, he met many times with the wildly complex Bellow and eventually was given all the documents he asked for. That tale alone reveals the laborious commitment necessary to do a thorough job of bio-reportage. This includes all the risks and whether, in the end, it is preferable to do someone who is still living, with whom you form a relationship, or wait until they have passed. (“I honored him by commemorating his life, but I also reminded him of its approaching end”)
Atlas ponders the future of the ‘biography’ as we have known it. What about the book itself, he wonders. (“Will it go the way of the gramophone?”) With letters becoming a thing of the past, will texts and tweets be enough to capture emotion and deep thought?
The first play I wrote followed two girls over five years, (leading up to 9/11) all in correspondence. I recently saw one by Sarah Ruhl comprised solely of letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. (Hers was called “Dear Elizabeth,” mine “Dear Maudie’) It’s an infectious conceit, but girls like the ones I wrote about likely haven’t written an actual letter in their lives, and I wonder if there are two poets today who correspond on a regular and thoroughly private basis. The only thing we fear losing more than thoughtful literary interaction, is privacy.
That being said, “The Shadow in The Garden” is not a downer. I found myself excitedly making a list of people to read more about (Edmund Wilson, Lytton Strachey, Dr. Johnson) and agreeing with Atlas that we will not see the end of biographers. But they will likely be filmmakers, skypers, oral historians and the like. And while there will always be the bold facers we want to know more about, it’s helpful to remember that everyone has a story, either to tell or to be told.