Published last fall, “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X” is the result of nearly three decades of work by Les Payne. Following his death in 2018 – with the manuscript nearly finished – his daughter (and primary research assistant) completed the book. Les Payne was a former U.S. Army Ranger and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and editor at Newsday.
Payne’s background as an investigative journalist will not come as a surprise to readers of this exquisitely-researched biography. Payne interviewed hundreds of people including nearly everyone he could find who knew Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little): childhood friends, classmates, cellmates, colleagues, family members and neighbors. His overarching goal was to write the most thorough, accurate and penetrating account possible of Malcolm X’s life (as well as his death).
In the end, Payne’s biography does for Malcolm X much of what Robert Caro’s multi-volume series does for Lyndon Johnson: create a colorful, insightful, thoughtful and scrupulously balanced portrait of a complex and occasionally perplexing human, underpinned by tenacious research.
Immediately obvious is that Payne is an engaging writer; his style is clear and straightforward but extremely descriptive and consistently captivating. He was intrigued – and even inspired – by Malcolm X. But if this biography frequently feels friendly toward its subject, it is not reverential. Payne is never reluctant to note his subject’s shortcomings and he works diligently to identify and correct errors and point out omissions from Malcolm X’s Autobiography.
But while Malcolm X is most famous for his dozen-year association with the Nation of Islam (which ended the year before his death in 1965) it is Payne’s description of Malcolm X’s childhood which is most notable for its vibrancy and scene-setting. These eight chapters (consuming about 200 of the book’s 523 pages of text) review his life up to his incarceration for larceny at the age of twenty and are uncommonly engrossing.
The most noteworthy revelation of the biography, however, concerns Malcolm X’s meeting with the Ku Klux Klan in 1961 to discuss the Nation of Islam’s shared opposition to integration and the possibility of working with the KKK to form a “separate state” for black Americans. The two-dozen pages covering this secret summit (which took place at another Nation of Islam minister’s home in Atlanta) are absolutely surreal.
In general, though, as the biography proceeds through Malcolm X’s work on behalf of the Nation of Islam the narrative grows more dense and difficult. During these chapters the focus is squarely on his ministry, the FBI’s surveillance activities and humanitarian and religious efforts of organizations such as the NAACP, the National Urban League and Martin Luther King Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Consequently, the reader loses touch with Malcolm X’s family members for long stretches of time and, curiously, neither his wife nor his six daughters receive much attention – or leaves much of an impression. In addition, Payne provides context and background unevenly throughout the biography. Readers who are unfamiliar with Malcolm X or the Nation of Islam, and who do not follow the story line carefully, may find events confusing or perplexing at times.
On balance, however, Les and Tamara Payne’s “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X” proves to be a penetrating, fascinating and extremely well-researched biography of an important activist and human rights figure. Les Payne set out to write the most accurate and thorough biography of Malcolm X ever published. With his daughter’s help it appears he accomplished that…and more.
Published this past week, Julia Sweig’s “Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight” promises a revealing behind-the-scenes portrait and revaluation of one of America’s notable First Ladies. Sweig is a senior research fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and has authored numerous books and policy papers on Cuba, Brazil, Latin America and U.S. foreign policy. Her eight-episode podcast about Lady Bird is available through ABC News.
As First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson is best known for her urban renewal, conservation and beautification efforts…and for those of us with Texas roots, her Wildflower Center. But what has been revealed only recently is the degree to which LBJ relied on her for unbiased strategic advice and feedback during his political career…particularly his presidency.
At the heart of this book are fresh insights gathered by Sweig from more than 120 hours of Lady Bird’s taped diary recordings which, until recently, was available only in written – and heavily edited – form. Sweig spent several years reviewing the tapes, reconstructing Lady Bird’s activities, and analyzing the observations she memorialized during her husband’s sixty-two-month presidency.
But readers expecting a cradle-to-grave biography will be disappointed. This book leaves aside nearly all of Lady Bird’s life prior to 1934 (when she met Lyndon at the age of twenty-one) and includes very little of their lives prior 1960 (when he was JFK’s pick for vice president). And while the book promises a profound revaluation of Lady Bird’s life and legacy, the information revealed only occasionally seems provocative or extraordinary.
Surprisingly, neither Lady Bird nor Sweig have much to say about the more colorful aspects of LBJ’s persona or presidency. While the author acknowledges his infidelities, they never receive much consideration…and their impact on the Johnson’s marriage is essentially unnoticed. Readers unaware of LBJ’s affairs or his infamous vulgarity will learn little of them here.
Although this is not a traditional biography of Lady Bird, it is a penetrating exploration of her time as First Lady. And it provides significant, if somewhat inconsistent, context on that era. Sweig’s work to uncover and convey Lady Bird’s influence during these years is obvious – and the book would most appropriately be titled “Lady Bird Johnson: The White House Years.”
Excellent individual moments include a gripping review of a controversy involving Eartha Kitt at a White House luncheon, wedding planning for the youngest Johnson daughter and a chapter describing the Johnson family’s life in the White House. Also of particular note is Lady Bird’s recollection of the day JFK was assassinated and the somber flight back to Washington D.C.
The most memorable broader threads involve an interesting contrast between the JFK/Jackie relationship and the LBJ/Lady Bird relationship. Sweig also provides an interesting comparison of FDR and Eleanor’s “working” relationship and that of the Johnsons. Finally, there is a fascinating ongoing exploration of LBJ’s decision regarding whether to run for re-election in 1968.
The narrative winds down as LBJ’s presidency ends but an Epilogue follows Lady Bird through the couple’s four-year retirement (until Lyndon’s death) and then reviews her thirty-four-year widowhood – an active period for her cultural and philanthropic pursuits. But at this point the narrative’s momentum has largely dissipated and the post-White House years are only briskly covered.
Overall, Julia Sweig’s account of Lady Bird Johnson’s life – her time as First Lady, in particular – seems to promise somewhat more than it delivers. As a revelatory vehicle providing insight into Lady Bird’s White House years the book is often invaluable. As a way of rounding out the conventional image of LBJ it can be quite useful. But as a complete and penetrating account of the First Lady’s public and private lives it is regrettably incomplete.
Fascinated by the atomic age and nuclear proliferation, Martin Sherwin began working on this book in the late 1970s…eventually asking Bird for assistance bringing the project to fruition. Built on a foundation of extraordinary research, these two authors combed through thousands of once-classified documents, conducted more than 100 interviews and reconstructed seemingly contradictory historical threads in order to fully understand how Oppenheimer’s story unfolded.
The resulting 591-page narrative is packed with penetrating insights into Oppenheimer’s life, the development of the world’s first atomic weapon and the government’s efforts to discredit Oppenheimer (who was accused of a variety of transgressions including being a Soviet spy).
It is undeniable that J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) makes a compelling biographical subject. He was brilliant, quirky, passionate, tantalizingly multi-faceted and remarkably flawed. He was not just a gifted physicist…among other things he was an ardent fan of French and British literature, wrote poetry and learned Sanskrit in order to read ancient Hindu texts in their original form.
Despite the narrative’s often detailed and occasionally complicated story-line, it is both straightforward and descriptive in an cleverly-composed way. And in many of the book’s chapters, every sentence seems to have been perfectly crafted for maximum effect.
The authors never fail to fully, and often colorfully, introduce important characters and they are adept at explaining things in terms a layman (or an incautious reader) will understand – whether relating to quantum mechanics or the strengths and weaknesses of the government’s case against Oppenheimer.
Excellent moments here abound. Among them: an wonderful introduction to Oppenheimer’s childhood, a skillful review of the early days of the nuclear arms race, a careful and nuanced exploration of Oppenheimer’s possible affiliation with the Communist party and a stunningly thorough (and damning) accounting of the government’s conduct during the Oppenheimer security hearings. And no one will put the book down during the penultimate chapter describing Oppenheimer’s strange, secluded life on a small Caribbean island the last years of his life.
But as is often the case with fabulous biographies, the narrative is not consistently engaging…or effortless. At times it is burdened by the tedious intricacies of Oppenheimer’s life. In addition, the story occasionally loses sight of his wife and children – though never for long. And some readers will notice that Bird and Sherwin have regrettably subordinated Oppenheimer’s expertise and efforts in physics to his clumsy political activism and idiosyncratic personal life.
Overall, however, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin have written what seems likely to be the definitive biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer. I have not yet read Ray Monk’s more recent “Robert Oppenheimer: His Life and Mind” so final judgment on the matter must wait. But one thing is certain: anyone looking for a compelling biography – or hoping to learn more about this extraordinarily interesting public figure – will not go wrong with this choice.
Maynard Solomon's "Mozart: A Life" was published in 1995 and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for biography. Solomon co-founded Vanguard Records, has taught at Columbia, Yale, Harvard and the Julliard School of Music, and authored several books including a highly-regarded biography of Beethoven.
Two things are immediately clear when reading this biography: it is built upon a foundation of assiduous (and likely painstaking) research...and it is not for the faint of heart. Solomon's narrative is neither an easy-to-follow chronological treatment of Mozart's life nor a particularly colorful one. Instead, it is fact- and conjucture-dense, thematic and disappointingly dry with a puzzling predilection for psychoanalysis.
Most readers will conclude there is much about Mozart's life which is simply unknowable but that Solomon diligently unearthed and analyzed every available bit of information. Unfortunately, the resulting narrative too often resembles the transcript of a tedious college lecture with little historical context, too much supposition and speculation, and almost no sense of narrative vibrancy. Very few readers will find the book hard to put down.
Great biographies generally provide robust introductions to a subject's family as well as his or her most important friends and colleagues. In this case Solomon provides only the barest of disclosure relating to anyone other than Mozart's father (whose presence throughout the book is pervasive), his sister (who receives her own admittedly excellent chapter) and Mozart himself. His mother and wife receive minimal coverage and his six children rarely appear at all.
Instead, the author exhibits a curious fascination with Mozart's finances - a preoccupation so unrelenting that one might suspect the author of being a forensic accountant in a past life. But if this unyielding focus on 18th-century accounting appeals to some readers, what they may be disappointed not to find is a thorough and systematic analysis of Mozart's musical compositions.
In addition, despite its Pulitzer imprimatur this biography fails to paint a cohesive or richly textured portrait of it subject. Readers unfamiliar with Mozart's life are unlikely to finish this book feeling as though they really understand him or have a good sense of what made him tick. In the end, he seems oddly inert and unexpectedly...uninteresting.
But Solomon's biography is not without its high points. His focus on Mozart's relationship with his father, though far too Freudian, is interesting. The chapter on his relationship with his sister and their eventual estrangement is fascinating. And the chapter covering Mozart's Masonic membership provides revealing insight into his character and motivations. But the pages which explore Mozart's Zoroastran "riddles" may be the most unexpected and intellectually compelling of the book.
Overall, Maynard Solomon's "Mozart: A Life" is a fact- and conjecture-rich biography of one of the 18th century's most creative and unsettled artists. But if Mozart's life was multi-hued and utterly captivating (as I suspect it was) Solomon almost entirely fails to capture that magic. And in the end his biography of Mozart, which is likely to appeal only to a narrow audience, is disappointingly dry and dull.
ublished in 1974, “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York” was Robert Caro’s first book – and earned him the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Caro is best known for his ongoing series covering the life of Lyndon B. Johnson. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for the third volume (“Master of the Senate”) and is currently working on the fifth – and presumably final – book in the series.
“The Power Broker” is notable both for what it is – a monumental investigative work and piercing exploration of a fascinating personality – and what it is not – an easy-to-digest narrative intended for the casual fan of great biography. This 1,162-page book is hefty but engrossing, detailed but illuminating and unquestionably demands more patience and perseverance than most biographies.
Readers familiar with Caro’s series on LBJ will find his writing style strikingly familiar: penetrating and potent but not particularly elegant and frequently dense but rarely dull. And given Caro’s knack for uncovering and piecing together various elements of his subject’s life, his background as an investigative reporter is hardly surprising.
This biography starts off somewhat slowly but once it is running at full steam (after about two-hundred pages) it is almost inexplicably enthralling. Robert Moses is not someone familiar to most readers, but Caro’s biography carefully tracks each phase of his uniquely consequential life – his rise to power, the decades he spent exercising that power and his eventual fall. At times this is as much a study of power as of Robert Moses.
There are too many excellent moments to comprehensively chronicle, but among the best are the chapter outlining Moses’ early vision for the development of Long Island, the review of his rise to power in New York City, descriptions of the ongoing tension between Moses and Franklin Roosevelt and the examination of Moses’ involvement in the Central Park Zoo and Triborough Bridge projects.
Caro also provides excellent introductions to important supporting characters such as Al Smith, Fiorello La Guardia and Nelson Rockefeller. And the chapter dedicated to describing a typical work day for Moses near the peak of his power, including his strategy for entertaining guests and dignitaries, is one of the book’s best.
This book’s few weaknesses are not well-hidden. The narrative rarely hurries to get to the heart of a matter and paragraphs routinely consume most of a page. Lacking both efficiency and a colorful fluidity, this is not a carefree read. In addition, Moses’ early years elapse far too quickly and his personal life proves elusive. But because his life revolved almost entirely around his career, this imbalance is unsurprising if unfortunate.
Overall, Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker” is an incredibly interesting, uncommonly penetrating and unquestionably demanding biography of one of New York’s most consequential public figures. Anyone seeking a casual biographical experience will find this book weighty and intense. But readers seeking a a fascinating story about a surprisingly compelling subject (and underpinned by meticulous research) will find few better biographies than this.
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