Robert Caro on How To Write a Biography
Robert Caro explains in an interview for The Paris Review: “You have to write not only about the man who wields the sword, but also about the people on whom it is wielded.” What the Pulitzer Prize winner explains here is simple, you cannot solely write about the powerful without also acknowledging the powerless. This has been Caro’s main goal since switching from day-to-day journalism to writer of monumental biographies.
In his newest book, which is a quarter of what his habitual reader is accustom to, Robert Caro takes us through a journey on how to write. Working (Vintage, 2020) is arguably the most straightforward title that Caro could choose for his book. And yet, it encompasses a legendary work ethic, that throughout this short, 239-page book, it seems from another planet. When one lets him give a tour through his various adventures while researching for his biographies on Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson, the figure of the writer appears to land from another era.
Caro doesn’t write on a computer, he still holds on to his typewriter, a Smith-Corona Electra. He does most of his first writings on a pad. He wakes up in the middle of the night to write some paragraphs, only to throw everything away in the morning. He barely likes to eat with friends outside the office while writing. (On one occasion, someone invited him to go to lunch. Caro, who…
