Nonfiction: Where Art Meets Information

I'm a big fan of "On the Media," the weekly radio program from WNYC in New York. The most recent show is on the book. You can listen to it here:


As usual with a show like this, the guests were a mixed bag. There were excellent, informed comments from the founder of Publishers Marketplace. And there were insane ideas from a director of the Institute for the Future of the Book.

Why insane? Because he suggested that, in the future, books will be written wiki-style, by subscribers who contribute to them. Now, I certainly can imagine this taking place. Wikipedia is a popular success, after all. But as the model for how books will be written—even nonfiction books—the notion is ludicrous.

For one thing, relying on masses of contributors leads to unreliable content. Wikipedia, for all its popularity, is simply not a trustworthy source of information. For it to work, it requires a critical mass of contributors who are both closely attentive to changes in articles, and who have real expertise. Some articles attain this happy state; in those cases, Wikipedia is simply a means of getting experts to contribute for free, rather than a demonstration of the wisdom of the crowd. But countless articles never achieve such a critical mass of authoritative, attentive contributors. These articles are merely depositories of apocryphal, unsourced assertions by people with particular obsessions or fixed ideas.

A bigger problem with the wiki-book idea, though, is its rejection of authorship. Why does authorship matter? Because even nonfiction books are works of art as much as information. They are not all encyclopedia articles. In the case of my biographies, I devote as much care to crafting the narrative, developing characters, building expectations, and offering reflections on the human condition, as I do to getting the facts right. And I devote a lot of care to getting the facts right.

The book is, generally speaking, a long-form narrative. With some exceptions, it is a story, and a story needs a storyteller, not a committee. But I'm not really afraid of wiki-books taking off and crowding out my kind of book. Simply put, they will suck, and (from a marketplace perspective) not in a good way.

Meet the Publisher

Writers tend to complain about their presses, especially these days, when the recession is squeezing publishers hard. And, to be honest, often writers have good reason to gripe.

Well, I'm one of the lucky ones. My editor, Jonathan Segal, and publishers, Alfred A. Knopf and Vintage (the latter for paperback), are the best in the business, and I've had a really terrific experience as an author. All the people at every step, from the lowest assistant to Sonny Mehta, head of Knopf, are in it because they love books, and it shows.

Rarely, though, do the people behind a book get the proper attention, and that's too bad. There's a Japanese saying that, loosely translated, what's in front doesn't matter, it's what's out of view that's important. As an author, the one out front, I think this saying often applies to publishing.

Here's an unusual tribute those somewhat hidden people behind the book, my editor and publisher, in a column on publishing at Huffington Post. Well deserved, I must say

What's in a Biography (or What's Not)

I'm taking a break from celebrating the National Book Award (see my previous two posts) for Thanksgiving. But it's also an occasion for a little head-shaking.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I took the hazardous course of responding to a review of my book in The Nation, written by academic historian Steve Fraser. You can read my response, and Mr. Fraser's reaction, here.

I'm sorry to say that Mr. Fraser's comments are a bit snide in tone. His review itself is somewhat more balanced, but the thrust of his complaint is that I did not write the book he would have written. This is the classic mark of a bad review. In his comments, as in his review, he neglects to engage the central issues I raise in my book; instead, he complains that my biography is not about the things he is interested in.

For biographers, this raises the interesting question of how to frame a biography. The subject that obsesses Mr. Fraser, and drives his review off track, is the air brake. For workers in the railroad industry, this was indeed an important subject. Lives were lost that might have been saved, had the air brake been adopted earlier. But should it have been a major focus for my biography? I think not.

The subject of my biography, Cornelius Vanderbilt, had nothing to do with the operational management of his railroads. He pointedly stepped back, attending to the strategic questions of managing a large corporation. His son William Henry Vanderbilt handled technical issues, such as the equipment, timetables, labor negotiations, and so on.

A biography is a life story, not (in my case) industrial history. To have indulged in a discussion of decisions and policies that Vanderbilt himself never engaged in (such as the adoption of the air brake) would have bogged down my book, and made it about something other than the life of this particular person. I could as well have discussed the impact of rail purchases on the steel industry in America, or the impact of pollution from coal-fired trains, or the growth of suburbs because of cheaper transportation. These are all important subjects, but to have become absorbed in them would have transformed my book into a general railroad history.

A biographer must focus on the story at hand, that of a life. Contextual discussions must advance that story. Mr. Fraser makes a sad attempt at moral bullying, all but flatly stating that I am a heartless propagandist for unbridled capitalism because I did not turn my book into a work of labor history. But what shapes my book is an understanding that my story, as a biographer, is not of a company, or even an industry, but of a human being. Where Vanderbilt did personally handle labor relations, when he was a steamboat and steamship entrepreneur, I do indeed discuss the issue, and I don't go easy on the Commodore.

Indeed, it is an irony that the exposition on air brakes that Mr. Fraser demands in my book would have diminished my discussion of the conundrums posed by Vanderbilt's career. Rather than focusing on particular technical issues, I address big themes that Mr. Fraser strangely ignores: the contradiction posed by the rise of giant corporations, with the creation of great wealth and productivity on one hand, and the polarization of wealth and power on the other. I discuss how large corporations gave rise to lifetime wage labor, and also to the union movement. I explore how Vanderbilt, by operating on a vast new scale, gave rise to the modern debate over government regulation of the economy. I emphatically do discuss labor, despite what Mr. Fraser claims, but I do so on much larger terms than the air brake.

This is big stuff, and it flows organically from the story of Vanderbilt's life. These are the topics that his contemporaries debated, when they discussed Vanderbilt. And that is the key to framing a biography. A biographer must write with clear-eyed honesty, engaging the important issues raised by the life in question; but the issues must flow naturally from that life, and not be tacked on. That's the rule I tried to follow.

I should add that this blog is about writing biography, and that's why I've limited my discussion here to matters of writing. For a discussion of another criticism of my book made by Mr. Fraser, you can turn to the blog on my main website, in which I discuss topics from the life of Vanderbilt. That entry is here, and covers the question of "dynastic capitalism," and whether I make overly large claims for Vanderbilt's significance.

E-Books? No Beef Here.

Some of the reporting of my acceptance remarks for the National Book Award suggests that I "took a swipe" at electronic books. I hope my actual speech, given in full in the previous post, will clear that up. E-books themselves are merely one more format, and I see no harm at all in them, in and of themselves. Rather, my reference to them merely capped my tribute to the overlooked people who make books, and make books matter. At most, I criticize the mistaken impression that some people may be forming with the advent of e-books; there's nothing in my remarks that identifies any harm caused by e-books themselves.

Just read the preceding post, and you'll see what I mean.

Acceptance Remarks for the National Book Award

A brief prologue, before my actual remarks:

After I was named a finalist for the National Book Award, I was strongly advised by a good friend who had once served as a judge to prepare remarks in advance, in case I won. I felt rather foolish as I did so; it was so much easier in 2003, when I was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, because Robert Caro was a finalist with Master of the Senate, and it was transparently obvious he would win. On that occasion, I truly relaxed during the ceremony and had a nice time.

Such books are rare, though, so I don't think I'm insulting my fellow finalists when I say that no one had any idea who would win this year. Far from it: They all wrote remarkable works, and they seemed to me like truly decent people as well. Any one of them could have gone up to accept instead of me.

But I did not anticipate the emotional intensity of being declared the winner. Jonathan Segal, my tough-minded, highly professional editor, unexpectedly wrapped me in a long bear hug that seemed to say that this was the culmination of our long collaboration. I was already in shock, and I frankly had to struggle to keep some semblance of composure.

So preparing remarks in advance turned out to be an excellent idea. I reproduce them here as I wrote them. Naturally there were some variations when I actually delivered them (starting with my declaration that this was an "out-of-body experience"). CSPAN's BookTV will be broadcasting the full event on Saturday, November 21, at 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific, if you wish to see how I actually spoke these words.

Here are my remarks, in full, as written:

* * * * *

I would like to preface my thank-yous with a few words which I hope will give them more weight. Before I became a full-time writer, I worked for ten years in publishing, both academic and trade. When I told my last boss I was leaving to write, she said, "I always knew you wanted to be on the other side." You would have thought I was going to tunnel under the Berlin Wall.

Well, I'm reporting back to say there is no other side. But I rather knew that from the beginning, when I was first hired at Oxford University Press, straight out of graduate school, by Woody Gilmartin. Woody, a fine writer with an MFA from Cornell, taught me that this thing all of us here inhabit, the culture of the written word, is a complex ecosystem filled with interdependent species—and most of them could be making a lot more money in some other swamp. The author is at the center, yes, but every book exists only because of countless people who care about writing and knowledge.

These are people who know that the book lies at the heart of all our culture, that it is the repository of knowledge, the breaker of news, the collector of wisdom, the thing of beauty. These are people all of us in this room have relied upon, sometimes yelled at, and have been ourselves—and may even be at this moment.

So before I thank the specific people who have helped to bring my book into existence, I want to thank the editorial assistants, copywriters, marketing managers, copy editors, graphic designers, production managers and managing editors. I want to thank the indexers, publicists, receptionists, and sales people. I want to thank the mail room guys, warehouse staff, bookstore clerks, and independent-bookstore owners. I want to thank the book reviewers, academic scholars, MFA students, librarians—especially the librarians—agents, and the unsung archivists. I suspect that the advent of the e-book is fooling some people into believing that none of these people are necessary anymore, or perhaps that they do not even exist. But if they cease to exist, then e-books will only be worth the paper they're not printed on.

And I sincerely thank my fellow finalists, as well as the excellent writers whose books did not fall into this particular final five. One of the great virtues of a prize like this is that it makes all of us stand up and say, "Really? What about this book?" The very arbitrariness of picking just one reminds us that the book is alive and well in our digital age. And I sincerely thank the judges, too, who had the unimaginable task of ruling out one outstanding book after another, who labored tirelessly and for nowhere near enough money, simply because they, too, love the written word.

I will close with just a few specific names. It is my great honor to work with my brilliant longtime editor, Jonathan Segal, who is a rarity—a true literary editor who understands the business as well. This book would not be what it is, might not even exist, if it were not for him. My agent, Jill Grinberg, is a real friend as well as an excellent representative, who has believed in me for a long time now. My parents, Dr. Cliff and Carol Stiles, are here tonight, having come all the way from Foley, Minnesota, the little farm town where I was born, having encouraged my intellectual pursuits since I was very young. And my wife, Jessica, is brilliant, thoughtful, beautiful, soulful, and a real professional when it comes to writing. We barely made it here this week, having both been hit last week with a bug that sent me to the emergency room. Our son Dillon is at home recovering as well, in my mother-in-law's care. But Jessica made it here, just as she's been there for me every step of the way. Thank you.

National Book Award for Nonfiction

Last night my book, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction. I am simply overwhelmed.

I had prepared remarks in advance, feeling rather foolish when I did so, but now I'm glad I did. I spoke about the overlooked people, many behind the scenes, who make and give meaning to books. I will post my remarks in full soon, as well as links to CSPAN's broadcast of them, but for the time being here is a good NPR story that excerpts my talk.

You can listen to it, or read it, here.

Review of Review

In the new issue of The Nation, Steve Fraser offers a lengthy review of my book. You can find it here. I wrote a response, which I hope the magazine will publish. You can find it on my main website, here.

I've posted before about the dangers of responding to reviews. This may be a good example. Mr. Fisher's essay is serious, informed, and discusses some important issues. It places my book within the larger recent literature of biographies of nineteenth-century capitalists. And, as I note in my response, its criticisms spring from a sympathy for the little guy. I can hardly take issue with that general attitude.

I decided to respond, but I had to ponder precisely how. The most important thing to avoid, I think, is any attempt at rewriting the review. For example, Mr. Fraser was bored by some of Part 2 of my book, and unconvinced by some of the connections I made. OK, so he was. Other readers felt otherwise. Some readers will agree. Who am I to try to wrestle him into loving my work?

Nor should I ignore the positive things he had to say about my book. The classic writer's response to a review is to immediately forget everything positive, and focus entirely on the negative. But if I expect a reviewer to see my work in its entirety, to see each element in the context of the rest of the book, then I have to do the same when reading the reviewer's essay.

Instead, I tried to focus my response on what was left out of the review. I had the feeling that Mr. Fraser missed a few of my key points—some of which harmonize with his sympathies. In general, if a response is warranted, it shouldn't say, "No, wait—my book is good!" It should be an engagement with the essay, part of a dialogue, held for the benefit of the reading audience. It should say, "Yes, but you've overlooked this, and I put the emphasis on that." A response was particularly warranted, I felt, because the themes that Mr. Fraser ignored (in my opinion) will be of particular interest to the readership of The Nation.

But perhaps no response was really necessary. I've already had my say, at great length, in my book.

Biographer Reviews Biography

Last Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle ran my review of Anne Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made. That review is here.

It is a really fine biography, of a type I've never thought of writing: A biography of a writer. My subjects have been extremely physical specimens, whose actions had grave consequences for those around them. Writing these books was not always easy, but there was a natural drama to my subject's lives that helped me a great deal. A biography of a writer, on the other hand, must engage the ideas and texts of the writer, while imparting a narrative momentum to the story of the life itself. It's a real challenge. Heller more than measured up.

Of my quibbles with her book, the most significant was my desire for a broad portrait of the intellectual landscape, and the reception that writers and critics across the spectrum gave to Rand's doorstop novels. But I want to stress that Heller does not completely ignore the critical reception (her account of the NYTBR's review of Atlas Shrugged is a good one). And, even more important, such a broad portrait was not a necessity for her book.

Her book was not about Ayn Rand and American intellectual life; it was about Ayn Rand. In my fairly rare outings as a critic, I think it's fair for me to give my perspective, to talk about where the book led me. But it's not fair for me to insist that the author should have written the book that I would have written. It's easy to do that, and wrong.