New Books in Biography & Memoir

Daniel Moran’s Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers (University of Georgia Press, 2016) provides a compelling investigation of how O’Connor’s initial reputation of a Southern female writer over the years evolved into her status of great American writer. The subtitle of the book–Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers–hints at a variety of details contributing to a literary multilayered portrait. In his research, Dr. Moran considers a number of critical reviews, readers reactions, and publishers commercial decisions while following the trajectory of O’Connor’s reputation. In the introduction, Dr. Moran notes that his book is “less a work of literary criticism than of a book history and cultural analysis” (9). His research invites a discussion of how the perception of literary texts is (or can be) shaped through conversations about them. Creating Flannery O’Connor draws on the theory of “rules of notice”–readers are supplied with keys to read and understand literary works and instigates a number of questions, which Dr. Moran addresses while de-constructing O’Connor’s portrait. Who identifies” rules of notice?” How, if at all, do they change? What do they inform about texts and their authors? If the initial reputation of O’Connor was primarily shaped by critical reviews, as years and decades elapsed since the publication of her early writings the environment that surrounds, absorbs, and modifies O’Connor’s works has, undoubtedly, significantly changed. To his survey of reputation production media, Dr. Moran adds the film industry and online resources: each domain presents O’Connor’s works from a different perspective. Through the de-construction of O’Connor’s literary portrait that has been created over decades through a number of venues, Dr. Moran re-creates a new version: elusive, fluid, and changing. Daniel Moran teaches history at Monmouth University; he has taught English at Rutgers University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

James D. Boys is the author of Hillary Rising: The Politics, Persona, and Policies of a New American Dynasty (Biteback Publishing, 2016). Boys is an associate professor of international political studies at Richmond University. Just in time for the election, Hillary Rising explores the full biography of Hillary Clinton. Boys draws on original interviews with close associates of Hillary Clinton, in addition to much recently declassified materials from the Clinton archive. For those who havent made up their mind, Hillary Rising provides one more piece of information. For those who know the biography, there is considerable to be learned about the political education and career path Clinton travelled to the 2016 election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

As Labour Party leader, member of Winston Churchill’s governing coalition during the Second World War, and prime minister of the epochal postwar government that established the welfare state, Clement Attlee played a decisive role in the history of modern Britain. In Clement Attlee: The Man Who Made Modern Britain (Oxford University Press, 2017; published in the UK as Citizen Clem), John Bew recounts the life and career of this modest yet deeply patriotic individual who dedicated his life to improving the condition of his fellow Britons. The son of a successful lawyer, Attlee enjoyed a comfortable upbringing until a trip to London’s East End exposed him to the degree of poverty in which many Britons lived. Dedicating himself to social work, he lived in the London slums until the outbreak of war in 1914 led him to volunteer for service. After the war he was elected to the House of Commons, where he often was overshadowed by the more dynamic personalities among his colleagues. Despite this, he weathered the tumult created by the fracturing of the Labour Party in 1931 and, as one of his party’s few remaining leaders in Parliament, he was quickly catapulted into the top post. As Bew demonstrates, this was not just a matter of luck but a reflection of political skills that his opponents frequently underestimated and which made it possible for him to lead so successfully both a cabinet of ambitious rivals and a nation recovering from the most debilitating war in its history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

All humans endure their private struggles, but rarely do we know what troubles our most famous public figures until now. In her recent book, Andy Warhol was a Hoarder: Inside the Mind of History’s Great Personalities (National Geographic, 2016), award-winning journalist Claudia Kalb shares her research into the mental health histories of several well-known and much-loved people. She discusses Princess Diana’s struggle with eating disorder and severe loneliness; the impact of Frank Lloyd Wrights narcissism on his architectural masterpieces and personal relationships; and Andy Warhol’s penchant for holding onto and storing decades’ worth of day-to-day objects. In our interview, Kalb talks about her keen interest in these people and their stories, and we discuss the way such stories humanize these idealized figures and universalize the human quest for mental and emotional well-being. Claudia Kalb is an award-winning journalist who specializes in the fields of medicine, health, and science, former senior writer at Newsweek, and contributor to publications such as Smithsonian and Scientific American. Follow her on Twitter. Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in LGBTQ issues, eating and body image problems, and relationship problems. Follow him on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Jimmy Stewart has a well-deserved reputation as one of the major stars of the classic film era. Yet his life was greatly affected by his experiences as a bomber pilot in World War II. Robert Matzen, author of the book, Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe (GoodKnight Books, 2016), reviews Stewart’s life in a military family and his role in the allied victory in Europe. He also discusses how the war affected Stewarts immediate post-war film career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Sister Mary Corita, IHM (1918-1986), was a beloved artist and teacher whose role as the rebel nun continues to inspire contemporary audiences. Corita joined the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1936 when she was just eighteen years old, and soon after became an initially reluctant Art teacher at Immaculate Heart College. Corita remained part of the community on Franklin and Western Avenues in Hollywood until 1968 when Los Angeles archbishop Cardinal James Francis McIntyre, and other conservatives, targeted the orders reformist ways. Corita’s Pop Art styled prints celebrating the presence of God in the most ordinary of everyday subjects (Mary is the juiciest tomato of all) drew the ire of McIntyre in particular. At age fifty, she took one of many unconventional steps and left the order to start life anew as an independent woman. In Corita Kent: Art and Soul: The Biography (Angel City Press, 2015), April Dammann traces Corita’s path as an artist and religious woman who participated in the heady scene of the Los Angeles art world in the 1960s while engaging her own devout spirituality at the same time. Coritas journey into printmaking took her beyond the confines of the college to the world of the most famous artists and designers in Los Angeles including Charles Eames, John Cage, Edward Kienholz, and Tony Duquette. She interacted with Henry Miller, Anais Nin, and other members of Los Angeles literary avant-garde. Clad in her nuns habit, Corita was more than a picturesque observer of the scene, however. Her highly refined silkscreens combining word and image with meticulously placed colors transformed the medium. She culled subject matter from the ideas of thinkers and social commentators ranging from Goethe to Isaiah, to John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and radical priest and soul mate Daniel Berrigen. Corita’s students, many of whose voices color Dammann’s carefully researched book, were beneficiaries of Corita’s aesthetic and intellectual explorations. As we reconsider the life of Corita Kent, we are confronted, in the quiet yet powerful manner of the artist herself, with a woman whose contributions to the radical forms of the 1960s are immense. Kirstin L. Ellsworth has a Ph.D. in the History of Art from Indiana University (2005) and currently, is an Assistant Professor of Art History at California State University Dominguez Hill. Email: kellsworth@csudh.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has spent a lifetime disagreeing with inequality, arguing against unfair treatment, and standing up for what’s right for people everywhere. I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark (Simon and Schuster, 2016), a biographical picture book–the first for young children about Justice Ginsburg’s life–tells the justice’s story through the lens of her many famous dissents, or disagreements. Award-winning children’s book author, Debbie Levy, demonstrates Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s persistence and highlights notable cases in which she was a participant, such as Frontiero v. Richardson (1973), which was an important win for equal rights for women. Debbie Levy has written many powerful nonfiction narratives for children, including We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song, The Year of Goodbyes: A True Story of Friendship, Family and Farewells, and Dozer’s Run: A True Story of a Dog and His Race. Ms. Levy is a former lawyer and newspaper editor. Susan Raab is president of Raab Associates, an internationally recognized agency that specializes in marketing literature, products and initiatives that help improve the lives of young people. Clients have included National Geographic, Scholastic, the International Board on Books for Young People, and bestselling authors and illustrators. Susan is marketing advisor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). She’s also a journalist reporting on publishing, education and human rights. Her work as a broadcast correspondent has been hosted by the University of Connecticut, and by the University of Florida’s Recess Radio, a program syndicated to 500 public radio stations. Her many interviews, including with Art Spiegelman, Jon Scieszka, Norton Juster, Laurie Halse Anderson and many others talking about art and literature can be heard here. Follow Susan at: https://twitter.com/sraab18 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Thomas Aiello is associate professor of history and African American studies at Valdosta State University. In The Battle for the Souls of Black Folk: W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and the Debate that Shaped the Course of Civil Rights (ABC-CLIO, 2016) Aiello focuses on the conversation between Washington and Du Bois in order to fully examine its contours. The book serves as both a document reader and an authored text that enables readers to perceive how the back and forth between these two individuals produced a cacophony of ideas that made it anything but a bipolar debate, even though their expressed differences would ultimately shape the two dominant strains of activist strategy. The numerous chapters on specific topics and historical events follow a preface that presents an overview of both the conflict and its historiographical treatment; evaluates the legacies of both Washington and Du Bois, emphasizing the trajectories of their theories beyond 1915; and provides an explanation of the unique structure of the work. The debate between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington on how to further social and economic progress for African Americans lasted 20 years, from 1895 to Washington’s death in 1915. Their ongoing conversation evolved over time, becoming fiercer and more personal as the years progressed. But despite its complexities and steadily accumulating bitterness, it was still, at its heart, a conversation and impassioned contest at the turn of the century to capture the souls of black folk. In addition to this work, Aiello is also the author of Jim Crow’s Last Stand: Nonunanimous Criminal Jury Verdicts In Louisiana; Model Airplanes Are Decadent and Depraved: The Glue-Sniffing Epidemic of the 1960s; and The Kings of Casino Park: Black Baseball in the Lost Season of 1932, among several others. James Stancil is an independent scholar, freelance journalist, and the President and CEO of Intellect U Well, Inc. a Houston-area non-profit dedicated to increasing the joy of reading and media literacy in young people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

The life of the German-born, pioneering American psychoanalyst, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, is intriguing enough in itself, but in the biography, To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann (Other Books, 2005), we learn that Fromm-Reichmann played an integral role in mid-century psychoanalysis. In this interview, with the author, psychologist, and historian, Gail Hornstein, we trace not only Fromm Reichmann’s many accomplishments, but also the history of Chestnut Lodge where she worked for many years, her relationships with Erich Fromm and Harold Searles, as well as the cultural impact of the book written by her patient Joanne Greenberg, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden. To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World is essential reading for anyone interested not only in the history of American psychoanalysis, but also psychoanalysis in general. You can find Chris Bandini on Twitter @cebandini. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Richard Bourke, Professor in the History of Political Thought in the School of History at Queen Mary University of London, began developing his history of Edmund Burke’s political thought in 1991. Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke (Princeton University Press, 2015) uses Burke as a window into the eighteenth-century articulations of British imperial power, exploring the way that Burke approached relations between Britain, Ireland, America, India, and France. Beginning with Burke’s boyhood in Ireland, and closing with the challenge of grappling with Burke’s ongoing legacy, this beautifully written book displays Professor Bourke’s long study, attention to detail, and gift for trenchant observation. Our conversation ranged over subjects as familiar today as they were in the 1700s, including Burke’s understanding of representative politics as a means of resolving conflicts present in the public at large, struggles between state and corporate power, and the warrant for popular revolution. “A career doesn’t have the coherence we impose upon it belatedly, but there exist preoccupations that recur and drive our action.” Carl Nellis is an academic editor and writing instructor working north of Boston, where he researches contemporary American community formation around appropriations of medieval European culture. You can learn more about Carl’s work at carlnellis.wordpress.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography