A Day for Biographers

Today's guest blogger is Catherine Reef, author of Leonard Bernstein and American Music; The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne; and Jane Austen: A Life Revealed.

I can easily conjure up little Eleanor Roosevelt suffering through her lonely childhood, or Helen Keller, on the cusp of adult life, announcing her intention to go to Harvard; both scenes were imprinted on my memory by my early reading of biographies.

Biography thrives as a literary genre because people love to read about other people. This is true for readers of any age. A good biography breathes life into a figure readers may have met only briefly in a classroom or history book; it takes them behind the scenes, where they get to know the subject in family life; it places them on the spot as the subject experiences triumphs and setbacks, sorrow and joy, and learns how to navigate life.

                  I still like reading about people, but today I like writing about them as well. Biography lets me do what writers love to do: tell good stories. Even better, through biography I can explore a character in depth and create a vivid portrait in words. But writing is a solitary task, so like many writers I welcome opportunities to mingle with other people doing the same kind of work, to talk shop and gain from others’ wisdom. This is why I was happy to discover Biographers International Organization, or BIO for short.

                  BIO is young (founded in 2010), but it has been strong and active from the start. Having as its mission “to promote the art and craft of biography, and to further the professional interests of its practitioners,” BIO presents the annual BIO Award to a distinguished biographer for his or her body of work. This year’s recipient is Stacy Schiff, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Véra and other notable works. BIO also hosts a terrific annual conference that always sends me home with many new ideas to think about and apply to my work.

                  At this year’s Compleat Biographer Conference, which will be held at the University of Massachusetts Boston on May 17 and 18, I will moderate a panel on young adult biography. On the panel will be two accomplished biographers, Mary Morton Cowan and Kem Knapp Sawyer, and a representative of the world of children’s book blogging, Dorothy Dahm.

Cowan received a 2010 National Outdoor Book Award and other honors for Captain Mac: The Life of Donald Baxter MacMillan, Arctic Explorer (Calkins Creek). She has also published numerous magazine stories and articles, a novel based on MacMillan’s experiences, and a book on logging in New England. Cowan has said about her work, “I am pleased and proud that these books give young readers a glimpse of relatively unknown history—dangerous and adventurous chapters of history!”

Sawyer’s recent biographies are of Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela (both from Morgan Reynolds) and Harriet Tubman and Abigail Adams (both from DK Publishing). “I try to figure out what gave my subjects the ambition and the drive to set out to change the world,” she said in a recent interview. “And I like to focus on what they were like when they were young, before they went on to become leaders.” Sawyer has written as well about current social issues such as the situation of refugees worldwide, and historical subjects such as the Underground Railroad. She also reports on youth in developing countries for the Pulitzer Center, an organization that supports journalism and education.

In recent years, book bloggers and online reviewers have become increasingly influential in the world of children’s literature. Dahm’s lifelong interest in biography for young readers led her to launch the Kidsbiographer’s Blog (http://kidsbiographer.com/), where she reviews new and noteworthy biographies for children and young adults and interviews their authors. A professor of English at Castleton State College in Vermont, Dahm has contributed articles and reviews to publications in the United States and Great Britain. I’m eager to hear what she has to say about the state of young adult biography today and what she looks for in a book of this genre.

Other conference sessions will focus on such matters of craft as creating suspense in biography and finding the right balance between a subject’s life and work, and on practical aspects of the writing life: dealing with agents, marketing, and the like. There will be plenty to interest biographers writing for any age level. You can learn more about the Compleat Biographer Conference from BIO’s website: http://biographersinternational.org/conference/. I hope to see you in May!

JOSEPHINE rocks, and so does her author!

Thanks to my occasional INK book reviews, I sometimes get presents from publishers. Opening an envelope from Chronicle and seeing JOSEPHINE by Patricia Hruby Powell, illustrated by ChristianRobinson,  nearly took my breath away.  When I began reading it, I had to sit down to still my heart.  Which is rather counterproductive because Powell’s book is all about dancing! It’s a gorgeous book, with text, artwork, design perfectly matched. As a biographer, I’m delighted to see it expand the genre of picture book biography. To learn more about the genesis of Josephine, I asked author Patricia Hruby Powell – a professional dancer herself – a few questions.

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker breaks a lot of boundaries.  It is a 104-page picture book biography divided into chapters, 3800 words long – way beyond usual picture book length. Is this the length and format that you had in mind before you began writing?

No, not at all. It began as a picture book, 1475 words long, which is too long for a PB, so I got it down to 1000 words. After taking it to a workshop I revised it as a 7500 word book for YA, imagining b & w illustrations along the lines of the Paul Colin poster art whose work helped launch Josephine’s rise to fame. I know, there’s really no such brief illustrated YA genre, but I was writing what impassioned me.

That odd manuscript won me my agent. After we received many complimentary rejections, my visionary editor-to-be at Chronicle Books asked if the author would cut it down to about 3000 words and make it younger for a picture book reader. I got it down to 3400 and that manuscript was purchased by Chronicle and in the editing process we added back some stanza/paragraphs.

The SLJ review lists it for grades 2-4, Booklist, for grades 5-8. What do you think?

I think it works for 2-4 and 5-8 and even high school. I know it’s being used for all those ages.

This book is so rich and multi-layered. It’s the story of one African American woman’s life.  It’s the story of the racial climate of the U.S. vs. Europe.  It’s the story of the evolution of an artist. What drew you to JB? Any dark nights of the soul along the way?

Way back in 2005, while on duty as a children’s librarian, I got to know a group of unfocused African-American preteen girls who showed up daily and pretty much wreaked havoc in the library. I thought Josephine Baker would be a great role model—with her high spirits which she channeled into great success (dancer, singer, star, civil rights worker, pilot, spy for the French, mother of 12). As I said, JOSEPHINE won me my agent at the end of 2009, and the book sale in 2010. At that point there was not really an awful lot of editing to do except for adding stanzas back in and tweaking here and there.

Darn those dark nights of the soul. We must talk about that.

Did you always intend to write in free verse?

Yes and no. The language was always razzle dazzle, but the line breaks came over time. What you write evolves, and as the words became more rhythmic I followed that rhythm and it became more important over several drafts. And the line breaks enhanced the understanding and the rhythm.

You’re a dancer, so you have a deep understanding of body and rhythm.  Did you dance while you were writing this?

I did dance while I wrote—occasionally—I mean I’m always dancing. If you dance for a lifetime or if you’re born wanting to dance, the rhythm just lives inside you. I watched early footage of the magnificent young Josephine and was wowed. I tried to translate that into words on the page.

The design and illustrations are glorious: the bright colors, the typography, the illustrations showing figures against a blank background. Were you involved in any of those decisions?

I was, actually. I had veto power over the publisher’s illustrator choice—a privilege rarely given to a non-star writer. Later, after Christian Robinson was chosen, my editor and I would sit over his early sketches (sent online) and we discussed the accuracy, the energy, the placement in the story—all very cool. And then we worked together on the placement of words on the page (how they sometimes cascade down the page) and the “shout out” words—those in caps. The designer got the final word, but I got to participate in that. What a great experience. I love Chronicle and I love my editor (who is way too busy so I’m keeping her name under tabs so we can get back to my next piece together ;-). And the publicity people and the designer--great. And I love Christian’s illustrations. Just magnificent.

How do children respond to the book, and to your dancing the Charleston for them?

Kids appear to be mesmerized by the book. I love seeing black kids seeing themselves in the illustrations. As for dancing, it certainly draws their attention. In our culture we don’t do enough dancing. I always encourage kids to dance. And to draw, paint, sing, write, tell stories, anything that offers self-expression. I’ve done a couple events where we’ve all danced together. Very fun.

Did your research on Baker lead to other book projects?

Struttin’ With Some Barbecue – another biography in jazzy verse about Lil Hardin Armstrong, jazz pianist and composer, Louis Armstrong’s wife – has not yet sold, but I think it will.

Loving vs Virginia is scheduled to come out with Chronicle in Fall 2015. This is a documentary novel for teens in verse about the interracial marriage between Mildred Jeter (black) and Richard Loving (white) in 1958 Virginia, when miscegenation was illegal. It’s a beautiful love story set against a backdrop of the civil rights movement.

I have a couple of other picture book biographies in the works and I look forward to getting back to a jazz age novel. Thanks for asking, Gretchen.

For a pitch-perfect trailer of Josephine by illustrator/animator Christian Robinson, click here

For the story of the Christian Robinson’s illustrations, including post-it sketches and paintings, click here.

Finding Mumbet

My latest book, Mumbet’sDeclaration of Independence, comes out on February 1.  I’m always happy on pub dates, but this one feels especially good (thanks, PW) not least because of the book’s spectacular illustrations by Alix Delinois. He lives in New York, has done since he was seven. But he was born in Haiti, and Caribbean light and color shine all through the book and perfectly reflect the tone I tried to express in the text. I’m going to interview him for my February blog, so I won’t gush on now.

I love writing about little-known people and I’m pleased that editors are publishing books about them. Every season sees more new heroes and heroines lining the lists. As for Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman, I discovered her while researching Write on, Mercy! The Secret Life of Mercy Otis Warren.  Not for the first time, research for one book led to the next one.  Both Mercy (white and well-educated) and Mumbet (an illiterate slave) lived in Massachusetts during the American Revolution – Mercy in Plymouth, Mumbet in the Berkshires.  Both used revolutionary fervor to advance their causes: Mercy, to write and publish her political views; Mumbet, to sue for her freedom. (This is a portrait painted on ivory, of Mumbet in old age. It's in the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.)

I try to bond with my subjects, and that often happens when I travel to their home territory.  This was true with Mumbet. ‘Twas a frigid day of January that I was given a “Mumbet tour” in Sheffield and Stockbridge, Massachusetts by historian Barbara Dowling, then working for the Trustees of Reservations, the conversation group that owns Ashley House, where Mumbet spent her slave years. The house was closed for winter – it being colder indoors than out! – but Barbara opened it for me to poke around, searching for traces of Mumbet’s life there.

  It's a comfortable, not grand, house, with a big hearth where Mumbet worked. I peeked up the chimney, stuck my arm into the baking oven, gazed into the small room off the kitchen when she probably slept. I climbed the narrow stairs that she climbed carrying refreshments to white men who discussed their fight for political freedom from the British.

Outdoors, nearby Bartholomew’s Cobble, far-off Berkshire mountains, and the Housatonic River presented themselves as symbols of Mumbet’s strength and courage, and found their way into my book. 

A few miles away sits the imposing Sedgwick estate, home of her lawyer, where Mumbet worked for two decades as housekeeper and second mother to the seven Sedgwick children. She saved enough from her wages to buy a small farm in the hills outside Stockbridge, and retired there to live with her daughter, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The house is gone, but I envisioned her, looking out over the Housatonic Valley that held a life's worth of memories. Her grave includes this epitaph written by Catharine Sedgwick, one of Mumbet’s charges:

She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. 

She could neither read nor write yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal. She neither wasted time nor property.

She never violated a trust nor failed to perform a duty.

In every situation of domestic trial,

she was the most efficient help, and the tenderest friend.

Good mother, farewell.

I ended Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence just after she sued her owner and [Spoiler Alert!] won her freedom. But she lived long after that, and her life led to me other African Americans of that era, and another book about worthy and under-reported lives. I included Mumbet’s later adventures there, but you’ll have to wait until 2015 to read those.

In the meantime, tune in next month to meet Alix Delinois, who also traveled to the Berkshires to bring Mumbet into view.

Getting At The Truth

I've been thinking a lot about truth. I've been thinking (often at 4 a.m.) about how to get at the real truth of a person, or an event. I've been obsessing about it because of my work-in-progress, but the search for truth has been in the news a lot lately, too.

Election season always brings out the question of truth. But these days so do extreme weather events (yes, folks, global warming is real, and yes we will be having more and more of these heartbreaking disasters like the typhoon in the Philippines unless we deal with it!).

And the past few weeks our country has been looking again at John F. Kennedy, and his truths. This Friday is, unbelievably, the 50th anniversary of his assassination. As a country we are still fascinated with the man, and obsessed, some say, with his death. I think the reasons are obvious and reasonable, though one journalist argues that our obsession with him is just our obsession with ourselves--if we are baby boomers. But there are new sources (see below, On the Media), and new insights. And so new books keep coming out, textbooks are revisited, revisions made, appraisals rewritten.

You talk to some people of a certain age and they do not budge from how they felt about J.F.K. the moment they heard the horrible news on November 22, 1963. (See below, me.) You talk to others of that age, or a younger age, and you get an emotionless appraisal of a man who was President for a very short time. For a really good summary of  how we are looking at J.F.K. right now, including some newly-released tapes, listen to this week's "On the Media." That's one of my favorite N.P.R. shows, by the way, because they are always in search of truth and how truth is reported (or not reported).  I highly recommend it.

Those of us who write know that it is darn hard to get at the truth. I mean not only the facts, but the core truth, the deep essence of a person or an event or a subject. Sometimes it takes a lot of creativity to keep it nonfiction. And sometimes, writing it as fiction is the best way to go (see below, Monica Edinger's new book).

First, of course, you have to make sure your facts are correct. This sounds like stating the obvious, but I can't tell you how many experts I know who say that whenever they read a newspaper or magazine article in their field, they scream, "they never get it right!" We who write books have more time to make sure our facts are correct, though mistakes do creep in (oy!) but, thankfully,  are corrected in future printings. (Thanksgiving is on the fourth Thursday of the month, not the last Thursday, because sometimes there are 5 Thursdays in the month,  ahem, Deborah.)

Where was I?

Getting the facts right is just one part of telling the truth.  For one thing, when you write for kids, you have to tell the truth, but sometimes, depending on the age, not the whole truth. But getting at the truth is more complicated and complex than that no matter who your audience is. To get at the truth you have to sift through your own preconceived notions, your own bias, other peoples' bias, untruths perpetuated throughout the years, lack of facts, etc. And at bottom is the challenge of understanding what facts you have well enough to convey the truthful essence of a person or an event.

Over ten years ago, an editor asked me to write a book about John F. Kennedy. I said no. I didn't want to learn more about him. I was only five when he was killed, and I knew that if I wrote a book about him, I'd discover painful truths that would ruin the kindergarten perception I struggled to maintain. The editor, apparently desperate for the book,  and fast (so it would be published at the 40th anniversary) raised the advance she was offering (I didn't mean to be bargaining!), begged a little, made a strong case, and finally I said yes. I am not sorry I did.

Writing High Hopes was a great lesson in how to find the truth--or a truth--about a historical person who was iconic in my childhood.  As far as I know there are no mistakes in that book, although one review criticized it for being too awestruck. I was too awestruck by the man--when I started. If that reviewer only knew how much of my awe was struck down by research! And still, if I wrote that book today, with ten more years of distance from the trauma and ten more years of jaded experience or, er, wisdom, I would probably write a different book. Slightly different. More emphasis on his foibles maybe?  And since it is a different world today, I might have included a reference to his dalliances. Maybe. (I decided the fact that he hid his illnesses was a truth I should tell; the affairs ended up on the cutting room floor, for, I felt then, good reason.) But does that make my take on JFK in High Hopes less true? No, I don't think so. But that does not mean it was the only way to tell the story, or that my book shows the only truths about J.F.K. for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. Yet ten years later, I am still proud of it, and grateful for the experience of writing it. And I still believe that I captured a true J.F.K.

[A brief pause to tell you two other reason why I'm so glad I wrote this book: In order to get permission to use the lyrics for High Hopes, I had to sing the song on the phone with the widow of the songwriter, Sammy Cahn. I also got a telemarketer who interrupted me while I was crashing out the book on a tight deadline to sing me her rendition of Marilyn Monroe's Happy Birthday, Mr. President.]

Sometimes you can't, as someone once said, let the facts get in the way of a good story. Or possibly in the way of truth. For what about getting at a truth when you don't know all the facts? Sometimes, I have learned, and seen, you have to turn from nonfiction to fiction. As I wrote a long time ago here, I had to jettison a story because the facts were just too elusive and mushy. I hope to turn that story into fiction one day, telling truths, still, but not relying only on facts.

As much as we are all about nonfiction on this blog, I'd like to put in a good word for great historical fiction. Sometimes the best way at a truth is through fiction. It just happens. Take a look at Monica Edinger's story about her road from nonfiction to fiction. And then take a look at her beautiful--and truthful--new book, Africa Is My Home. In it she shows us the real story of a real person, Sarah Margru Kinson, one of four children who forced to come to this country on the infamous slave ship, The Amistad.  I think this book should be taught alongside nonfiction about slavery and the Amistad. It gets at the truth the way Laurie Halse Anderson's brilliant Chains and Forge do. Sometimes the way to tell a truth is through meticulously researched historical fiction, as both Anderson and Edinger show. 

Now speaking of the truth and getting at it--I'm taking a break from I.N.K. blog posts to focus on getting my W.I.P. down on paper in the best and most truthful way that I can. I hope to be back by late winter or early spring. I'll keep reading I.N.K., of course, as I hope will all of you. 

Those orange books and other non-fiction favorites

As a child, I was drawn to novels, especially those in my parent’s library, a small room lined with bookcases, tucked next to our living-room. My brother and I called it “the dreaded piano room,” where we were sent daily to practice. I spent more time curled on the couch reading than banging notes on the piano. Yes, of-course, now I’m sorry. I have become a famous concert pianist, despite my lack of talent. If only… Instead I devoured scintillating novels. such as Forever Amber and Gone With the Wind. When I did read non-fiction (those not assigned at school), it was always a biography of a famous American woman - Dolly Madison, Amelia Earhart, or Clara Barton. I called these books, long disappeared from library shelves, “those orange books.” They were actually from a series called Childhood of Famous Americans published by Bobbs-Merrill Co. Now I would label them creative non-fiction, as they contained fictionalized scenes and dialogue. Some were republished by Patria Press in the late 1990’s with a new format and cover design. They are still available.

 Why did I love these books? I think because they were stories about women who persevered, despite living in a male-dominated culture, women who took risks and dared to follow their dreams. Did I notice then that many of these "famous women" were wives of American presidents? The message was subliminal but I got it.

The book that seems life-changing to me now, as I look back, is The Diary of Anne Frank, which was translated into English in the 1950’s. I attended a private girls’ school in St. Louis. There were very few Jewish girls in my class. Despite the fact that the Holocaust had occurred in our very recent past, there were no references to it in our classes. I received The Diary of Anne Frank as a gift from my uncle. Not only did the story startle and move me, it also gave me a sense of my Jewish heritage. By the time I graduated this memoir had captured the attention of the whole world and my own small world, as well. But when I first read it, I felt as if I had somehow discovered it.

My writing partner Sandra Jordan wanted weigh in with her favorite, as well.

“My parents both loved to read and our book shelves were a hodge podge of novels, poetry, and old, battered volumes that no one remembered buying.  Yard sales perhaps.  Of course I read everything.

An American Doctor's Odyssey: Adventures in Forty Five Countries by Victor Heiser, MD.  It begins with a thrilling first person account of 16 year old Victor Heiser surviving the Johnstown, Flood.  After that it's on to doctoring as an international public health official.  Plague, small pox, leprosy, typhoid, cholera and  hookworm.  I was fascinated by major epidemics.”

For more books that deal with “major epidemics,” read Jim Murphey’s I.N.K. blog!  Sandra and Jim ought to get together!!

The non-fiction book about art that inspired me to write my own is H.W. Janson’s classic introduction to art in the Western World, History of Art for Young People (revised in 1997 by his son the art historian Anthony F. Janson).  This is the cover of the copy I have from some years ago.

I learned a great deal from this book, but I also wanted more, more info, more detail, more story. I realized that a book that focused just on looking at contemporary American art would be a complement to Janson’s encyclopedic volume and fill a gap in the bookshelf. Janson’s History of Art is just the beginning.

Since The Painter’s Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Painting and its’ companion book The Sculptor’s Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Sculpture (with Sandra Jordan) was published, we've moved on to write many books about individual artists, including an architect, a choreographer/dancer, and a ceramicist in our new book The Mad Potter. 

In addition many wonderful books for young readers about the arts have been published in the last fifteen years. I am compiling a list of recommended books for young readers on all the arts in America. Some of my favorites have been written by our I.N.K. bloggers I’ll share what I’ve gathered in my May I.N.K. post.

Helping Kids Nurture Their Inner Ratters

Last July 8, a Cairn terrier came into our lives. We had been without a dog since Tinka, our beloved Golden Retriever, died in 2004. While in Pennsylvania for a party, we heard about a dog who needed a home, and even though we debated for seven years whether or not we could have a dog in the city (we lived in Bucks County, PA, during the Tinka years), we have not looked back. Ketzie is, as I tell her often, a value-adder in our lives. 

     There is only one time when I feel at all doubtful about Ketzie. And that's the last walk of the night. Not because I'm too tired, but because the last walk of the night has become THE RATTING WALK. 

     Before you get too grossed out (or maybe too excited), see below for one of the cuter aspects of the dog being a ratter. Here she is hiding under our bed. "Hiding." Why is she hiding? She has a new toy bone, and she doesn't want us to get it. OR rather, she'd like for us to try to get it, but she wants to put up a fight. She knows it is safe under there. 

(Why are there books there? Our bed is a little bit broken. Until we can get our friend Keith to make us a new one, we have to prop it up with something. We have more books than we have space for, so.....) 

Where we lived in Pennsylvania, there were mice and moles and skunks and deer. Where we live now, there are rats. Mostly they are hidden. But once in a while, at night, one will scamper across the street or sidewalk in front of us. While my instinct is to jump back, Ketzie's instinct is to become very alert. She assumes a posture we don't see any other time: alert in every cell of her body. It's as if her ratting genes coming to ATTENTION. Cairns were bred to get rats out of cairns (or maybe, truly, out of homes made of stones). And at night, just outside our lovely apartment building, Ketzie is ready to be OF SERVICE. 

I don't think we're going to train her to be on the rat-hunting squad.  Yes. There is a rat-hunting squad in NYC and that link is to an article and a video about it. Please watch the video. It's only a minute and a half, and so worth it. I'll wait until you come back. 

Right? Ketzie really should be on that squad. But considering every night we're (husband and I) terrified she will catch a rat, I don't think it is in her future. 

When we have to force her to come back inside--Cairns are stubborn!-- I feel like we're thwarting her most basic nature. Which makes me sad. 

Tinka, our Golden, did not understand fetching in our Buckingham back yard. But the first time we threw a stick into the ocean, in Nova Scotia, she swam in, retrieved it, and laid it at our feet. Another clear sign of genes being able to express themselves. 

As parents and teachers and writers it is our job to help kids find their true selves. To help them express who they are, who they were meant to be. People who live their lives letting their innermost selves guide what they do are the ones we admire the most. Often those people have to fight inner and outer battles to do so. Paul Erdős was one of those people. He was so lucky that his mother (and later his father) nurtured his love of math, and understood his true nature. Mama let Paul be home-schooled until he was ready for school. She challenged him with math from the time he showed the great interest and ability (when he was four). Later on, the love and support he got from his parents, and the great foundation he had in math, allowed him to go out into the world--on his own terms. 

(Shameless and excited plug: THE BOY WHO LOVED MATH is coming out next Tuesday. Check out my website for news, etc.) 

Even if we are not math prodigies or ratters or retrievers, we each have inborn strengths and talents that should be nurtured. We each have problems to overcome; everyone has to learn strategies for how to fit into the world. Some, like Paul Erdős, have more of a challenge than others. But with adults in their lives who understand their needs, they have a greater chance at success and a happy life. 

As parents, teachers, and dog-owners, we do the best we can. Even though I don't let Ketzie go after rats, I do buy her a new toy every time she destroys her current favorite. I think--I hope--that along with about an hour and half's worth of walks every day, good food, and lots of attention, that's enough. She seems pretty happy, and at home. 

Personal History

This month, each of us I.N.K. bloggers is supposed to write our last original post for the 2012-2013 school year, followed by a rerun of one of our favorite blogs in July and then a month off in August. But forgive me if I break protocol. Try as I might, I can't seem to write something original this month. My dad passed away on May 5, 2013, at age 93, and I'm still adjusting to the world without him in it. He was a wonderful father and a terrific role model who instilled in me a spirit of independence, a sense of humor, a love of sports, and a steadfast integrity in work and life. I had decided to run this post from December 2009 as my "best of" next month, but I offer it now, in his memory.

My dad will be 90 years old on December 8. To celebrate, we’re having a big party this Sunday, commemorating the milestone with excellent food, good cheer, and even a surprise or two. My brother, a one-time stand-up comedian, will be master of ceremonies at the festivities. Not surprisingly, my contribution will be providing the historical context.

A few years ago, for my parents’ 50^th anniversary, I created mini-magazines with pictures, short articles, and even a few puzzles about their life together—no doubt a reflection of my many years as an editor of Scholastic’s classroom magazines. This time, having just completed the back matter for an upcoming book, I decided to apply one of the go-to standards of nonfiction back matter to my dad’s life—the timeline.

Since I wanted this timeline to make a visual statement as well as an emotional one, I started by searching for software that would enable me both to organize events and import pictures. I found a few different programs, designed for business presentation purposes but adaptable for personal use. I took the plunge and bought one, then started working on the content. It turns out that despite knowing my dad for 55 years, I could not pinpoint as many defining moments and turning points as I thought. So I doggedly pursued the details of his life as I had those of Annie Oakley and Nellie Bly before him, poring over scrapbooks and photo albums and turning every visit to my parents’ home into an oral history session.

I learned volumes. For instance, my dad, who helped found one of the biggest accounting firms in New Jersey, got his start in business at age seven, when his older brother “forced” him to sell copies of Collier’s magazine for five cents door-to-door. He turned 13 in the midst of the Great Depression, so he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah with a party at home; he said his best gift was a $2½ gold piece. (Who even knew there was such a thing?) In the 1950s, both of my parents campaigned for Adlai Stevenson; they’ve got a letter signed by Stevenson thanking them for their support and a souvenir ticket to one of his rallies. Later in the decade, my dad continued his commitment to civic affairs by serving on the Citizens Advisory Zoning Committee in our town and the Citizens Planning Association for the area.

When I write biographies, I start with a subject who had an impact on society and use every available resource to try and learn more about who that person was. Working on my dad’s timeline, I went in the opposite direction. For most of my life, I’ve seen my dad from the context of our family, from my particular perspective as his older child, his only daughter. But looking at his accomplishments all mapped out on a colorful timeline helped me get a clear sense of his place in the world beyond our front door. What a great learning experience. What a great man.

 

Click on the timelines to see larger images.

Keeping the Faith

When you're working on a biography, what can you do when facts are sparse about an aspect or a period of your subject’s life? Deborah Heiligman, Susan Kuklin, and I hoped for some answers to this question when we attended a panel called "Dealing with Black Holes in Your Narrative" at the Compleat Biographer’s Conference a few weeks ago in New York. Deb shared some helpful nuggets from this panel in her latest INK column. (Thanks, Deb!)

I keep thinking about what one of the panelists, an award-winning and esteemed biographer, said he won’t do in such a case. He won’t speculate on what someone was thinking or feeling or doing. He eschews phrases such as “may have” or “could have” or “must have felt.” He abstains from “perhaps” and “maybe.” He believes these expressions can reduce a book’s credibility and energy level.

An audience member asked this panelist whether he thought it was ever OK to use them. Surely the spare, occasional use of "she may have thought..." or "perhaps he felt..."—set against a background of facts, of course—was acceptable? she asked hopefully. No, never, not to him. He replied that even this can undermine a reader's faith in a book. Panelist 2 agreed with him. Case closed.

Except that it wasn't. Panelist 3, who is also an award-winning and esteemed biographer, eventually piped up. She pointed out that a writer is, after all, an interpreter of a subject’s life. As long as the facts are firm, she said, then in her view it’s fine for the biographer to wonder occasionally about a person's feelings or thoughts. You can present the evidence you have, she said, and leave it as a question.

Several audience members nodded in agreement with her. I was one of them. But I recently saw a reader review of Master George's People on amazon.com that made me reexamine my position. The reviewer faulted the book for what she called "no-source opinion statements, like 'the enslaved people no doubt saw the matter differently' and 'they felt.'" I know for sure what I felt when I read this criticism, and it was a brief moment of panic. Panelist number 1's words echoed in my head. My word choice had undermined at least one reader's faith in my book.

But then I reminded myself that I would not have taken an unfounded, no-source leap. I grabbed the book and turned to the example the reviewer quoted. It's from chapter 4, "Resistance and Control." Here's the complete paragraph:

     Most of all Washington deplored the "spirit of thieving and housebreaking...among my people." He believed he fed, clothed, and housed his "people" as well as or better than any other slave owner in the region. As far as he was concerned, they were entitled to nothing more. From the slaves' point of view, however, what they were given by their master was totally inadequate. So they took it upon themselves to make up the difference. Meat disappeared from the meat house and corn vanished from the corn loft, as did cherries from the orchards and nails from construction sites. "I cannot conceive how it is possible that 6000 twelve penny nails could be used in the corn house at River Plantation," Washington fumed. To him, these were acts of theft, pure and simple. Mount Vernon's enslaved people no doubt saw the matter differently. They felt they had earned a share of the goods their labor had produced."

I went back to my annotated copy of the manuscript to check my source notes. To my surprise, the paragraph ended with "...Washington fumed." The last 3 sentences weren't there. Then I realized I must have added them later, at the suggestion of one of the two historians who vetted the manuscript for me. (One is a research historian at Mount Vernon who specializes in slave life, the other, a university professor, is a leading authority on African American colonial history.) I searched through my correspondence, and sure enough, I came across a note from one of them saying that I needed to add something about how the slaves felt about helping themselves to the fruits of their labor. Leaving the last word with Washington left the story one-sided. The other historian agreed.

As far as we know, Washington's slaves left no written accounts. Very few of them could read or write. So it's true that we can't know exactly how they felt about their activities. But there are primary sources revealing how enslaved African Americans on other plantations viewed taking things, food in particular, from their owner, and a common theme was that "the result of labor belongs of right to the laborer."

My framework of facts was firm, so I feel very comfortable with my decision to suggest how Washington's slaves would have felt about snatching chickens or sneaking cherries, to indicate that these activities did not compromise their moral code. Indeed, I think I would have been negligent not to have done so, unfaithful to those whose story I'm telling.

Should biographers absolutely stay away from speculating about a subject's thoughts and feelings? Or is it acceptable to suggest occasionally how a subject might have felt or thought, as long as this is set against a strong background of facts? I'd love to know what other writers and readers think about this.