New Books in Biography & Memoir

As Elizabeth Goldsmith writes in The King’s Mistresses: The Liberated Lives of Marie Mancini, Princess Colonna, and Her Sister Hortense, Duchess Mazarin (PublicAffairs, 2012), the Mazarin sisters were “arguably the first media celebrities.” Upon their arrival at Louis XIV’s Court of Versailles, the sisters made a splash when Marie and the young King promptly fell in love. Ultimately, the couple’s relationship– which climaxed with a forced separation and Marie’s confinement in a convent– reads like something out of Shakespeare. Forced into advantageous mismatches that were, at turns, oppressive and abusive, the sisters jumped back into public view when Hortense, donning men’s clothing and making use of the new post coach service, left her husband and took to the road. Marie promptly joined her. At a time when it was borderline scandalous for women to travel unaccompanied by men, much less divorce them, the sisters darted about Europe, seeking refuge from the husbands who actively pursued them. The story of their escape seemed like something out of a novel and, for years, the whole of Europe was riveted. As Goldsmith writes, the sisters were “admired by libertines, feminists and free-thinkers but viewed by others as frivolous at best and threats to civil society at worst.” Both women penned memoirs, with that of Hortense being the first memoir written to which a woman signed her name. What is perhaps most striking about the sisters now is how brazenly unapologetic they were. As Hortense writes: “I know that a woman’s glory lies in her not giving rise to gossip, but one cannot always choose the kind of life one would like to lead.” She and her sister landed lives of adventure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

When it comes to writers and artists, biography plays a provocative role–yielding insight into both artistic influences and origins. This is especially true with the modernists, in particular T.S. Eliot. After graduating from Harvard University in 1910, the young Eliot spent a year in Paris, a year that had a lasting and profound effect upon his work that has gone largely unexamined until now. In her riveting intellectual biography, T.S. Eliot’s Parisian Year, Nancy Duvall Hargrove, the William L. Giles Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Mississippi State University, revisits that single year in the poet’s life to mine it for later influences. While this period is often interpreted to be typical of the early 20th century post-graduate foreign study experience, Hargrove invites us view it as extra-ordinary. Linking Eliot’s work to the Ballets Russes, the music of Stravinsky and the intellectual tension ofLaNouvelle Revue Francaise, she demonstrates the rare coming together of an artist and the art of his time to form “un present parfait.” It was a year that influenced not only his poetry but also his prose. As Hargrove writes, the theater Eliot encountered while in Paris “may have been the inspiration for the difficult dramatic goal which Eliot later set for himself: to write verse drama in an age conditioned to prose and to write of spiritual and moral concerns in an age largely devoid of and unsympathetic to them.” But perhaps most impressive- especially to any lover of Paris- is Hargrove’s meticulous recreation of the city as it was then. Through chapters on sport, popular entertainment, transportation, etc., she elegantly situates the young poet amid a city so alive it seems to strain against the page. The end result is a book that leaves the reader longing for both the poetry and Paris. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

The second-longest reigning British Monarch, Queen Elizabeth II has always remained an elusive figure, a monumental accomplishment given the media attention focused upon her family. In her new book, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch (Random House, 2012), Sally Bedell Smith peels back the layers of mystique to reveal the very shy woman who is the current Queen. It isn’t so much a dismantling as a reevaluation, an effort to appreciate a figure who– though part of an institution that is seen by some as vestigial– is nonetheless deeply impressive and truly beloved. Smith interviewed over 200 people, 160 of whom are on the record as the queen’s relatives and friends–a fact that suggests that the 40 individuals who opted for anonymity are even grander higher ups. Though the book is not “authorized,” it carries significant clout. Buckingham Palace also offered Smith limited access to the Queen, so the author could see her subject in action and play witness to her quiet charm. That’s the biggest stamp of approval for which a royal writer can hope. Like many royal biographies, Elizabeth the Queen is filled with small, gossipy tidbits. We learn what the Queen eats for breakfast and what she carries in her ubiquitous handbag. But Smith also offers substantive insight into the less examined areas of the queen’s life, in particular her religious faith, her life pre-ascension and her relationship with the Queen Mother. The end result is a lively portrait of a hard-working woman who, in her own way, has represented “a new Elizabethan age.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Late in 1872, as the United States sought to clear the newly incorporated Southwest of its indigenous inhabitants, a company under Capt. James Burns came upon an encampment of Kwevkepayas (a branch of Yavapais) sheltering in the shadow of rock overhang above the Salt River Canyon. The soldiers wasted no time on the formalities of battle. They rained down fire, bullets ricocheting from the roof the cave, felling the refugees below. They even pushed down boulders. None survived. Well, almost none. A few days prior, the advancing soldiers had come across a young boy of eight or nine looking for a missing horse. “They made a rush for me,” Hoomothya would later write. “They pulled me over rocks and bushes. The men didn’t care whether I got hurt or not.” But unlike Burns’ Kwevkepaya siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandfather, the invaders did not kill him. In fact, the man responsible for his family’s extermination would adopt the young Hoomothya as something between a son and a servant, renaming him Mike Burns. Over a century later, the prolific writer and editor Gregory McNamee has brought us Burns’ remarkable story. In The Only One Living to Tell: The Autobiography of a Yavapai Indian (University of Arizona Press, 2012), Burns recounts his survival of the massacre, his time as a scout for the U.S. military on the campaign against Geronimo, his education n white schools, and eventual reconnection with his Yavapai community. “Mike Burns lived in two worlds,” McNamee tell us, “and he was at home in neither.” But his intelligence, humor and compassion illuminates both in profound and unexpected ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

In December of 2011, Oprah Winfrey appeared on The Dr. Oz Show to talk about her new big plans and her inspirations for the future. Oprah replied, “For me at this particular time in my life I recognize that everything is about moving closer to that which is God. And without a full, spiritual center — and I’m not talking about religion — I’m talking about without understanding the fullness from which you’ve come, you can’t really fulfill your supreme moment of destiny. And I think everybody has a supreme moment of destiny.” Oprah has been providing the path to achieve this (Aha!) moment for decades now through the rituals of contemporary consumer culture and spirituality that enable individuals to live their best life. Kathryn Lofton, Professor of Religion at Yale University, cleverly unravels Oprah’s story within the broader context of American religiosity and the academic study of religion in her book Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon (University of California Press, 2011). In this excellent work, Lofton contends that modern religion is not something distinct that we can analyze but should be conceived of as the interaction of various modalities, which are often bracketed off as “Spirituality,” “Commodity,” and “Corporatism.” In our interview we explore various topics, weaving in and out of the content of the book, covering politics, public policy, ritual, capitalism, 9/11, among many others. We also had time to discuss freq.uenci.es, a co-curated project funded by the Social Science Research Council, as well as the various reactions to the project from critics on The Immanent Frame. Lofton was a delight to talk to as you can tell from her engaging presence but for those who have not yet read the book be reassured that her personality and sharp insight shines throughout the text. It was a joy to read and there should be no wonder why she has received such a wide response by commentators. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Much ink has been spilled in telling the story of the making of Gone With the Wind– be it the book, the movie, or the subsequent musicals and merchandise. So it’s not only refreshing but downright commendable that in their biography, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller’s Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2011), Ellen F. Brown and John Wiley, Jr. managed to stumble upon a story that has been almost entirely ignored until now. Rather than focusing the biography on an individual involved with Gone With the Wind, the authors explore the life of the novel itself, from its inception through to its future. What emerges from their narrative is a fascinating perspective on the life of a tremendously successful book– a story that’s equal parts legal thriller and manners drama, and peopled by a cast of colorful characters. We’ve flapper Peggy Mitchell, her stern husband, and her lawyer brother, whose Southern affability is put to the test by the slew of glitzy publishing people they encounter in New York, all of whom seem to bungle the novel’s publication in one way or another. Thanks to that bungling, the case of Gone With the Wind provides a crash course in the history of United States copyright law and that may be the enduring legacy of Brown and Wiley’s book. It leaves one with a renewed appreciation for the grit and determination of Miss. Mitchell- an oftimes undervalued literary figure, who fought viciously to retain her authorial rights around the world, during war-time and in an age long before email. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Nearly 50 years after his death, Malcolm X remains a controversial figure. An 8th grade dropout (he ditched school when a white teacher told him it was unrealistic for a black kid to dream of being a lawyer), he rose to prominence as the second most influential minister in the Nation of Islam, only to dramatically break with the Nation and convert to Sunni Islam the year before he was killed. As the nickname “Detroit Red”–gained during his hustling days in Harlem–implies, Malcolm X makes for a sneaky biographical subject. In the public imagination, he’s largely defined by The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written by Alex Haley and published shortly after his death. However, as the late Columbia University scholar Manning Marable reminds us in his ground-breaking biography Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Penguin, 2011), The Autobiography is a text and not a history. The Autobiography itself was a reinvention. The winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for History, Malcolm X is an attempt to reshape the narrative of Malcolm X’s life and to prompt further investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death, but the book’s greatest contribution may turn out to be its portrayal of Malcolm himself. In contrast to the near messianic figure of The Autobiography, the Malcolm that emerges in Marable’s telling is profoundly flawed and hauntingly human. He is also vividly alive. “He lived the existence of an itinerant musician,” writes Marable, “traveling constantly from city to city, standing night after night on the stage, manipulating his melodic tenor voice as an instrument. He was consciously a performer, who presented himself as the vessel for conveying the anger and impatience the black masses felt.” The snappiness of Marable’s prose leaves one with the sensation that Malcolm X must’ve been standing over the author’s shoulder for the full twenty years it took him to write the book. Detroit Red– whistling, snapping, hustling, along. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Mention the name Bill Veeck to a baseball fan and what will likely come to mind is the back-and-white image of three-foot, seven-inch Eddie Gaedel at the plate of a Major League game, swimming in his St. Louis Browns uniform, the opposing catcher having just caught a pitch well over his head. Gaedel’s sole appearance for the Browns in 1951 is part of the lore of baseball, and it is often cited as the prime example of Veeck’s antics and his irreverence as a team owner.  As owner of the Browns, the Cleveland Indians, and the Chicago White Sox, as well as owner of the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers and executive for the Chicago Cubs, Veeck was famous–and infamous–for his promotions and publicity stunts. Veeck wanted to bring people to the ballpark, and he was willing to try any scheme to do that: giving away 100 dollar coins frozen in a block of ice, serving free breakfast cereal for morning games, inviting fans to bring their detested disco records for an on-field demolition, or sending a midget into a Major League game. Paul Dickson‘s new biography of the owner, Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick (Walker & Company, 2012), shows that there was far more to Veeck than Gaedel at the bat, Disco Demolition Night, or any other promotional stunt. Veeck had a genuine interest in serving his customers, in making a day at the ballpark an enjoyable experience for the whole family. The owners of the time judged his schemes as insults to the game. Even more than that, they resented Veeck’s willingness to mix with fans at the stadium gate and in the bleacher seats. Eventually, baseball’s owners came to recognize the wisdom of this so-called showman. The fan-friendly ballpark experience of today owes much to Bill Veeck’s innovations, from wider seats and widely available restrooms to specialty foods and promotional giveaways. At the very least, Veeck should be remembered for directing the renovations of Wrigley Field in 1936-37, a project that included building a brick wall in the outfield and planting ivy at its base (the Chinese Elms planted by the scoreboard didn’t survive the famous winds at the North Side park). But perhaps Veeck’s greatest legacy was his commitment to the integration of baseball. As Paul explains in the book and the interview, Veeck had a bold plan to introduce black players into the Major Leagues already in 1942. League officials, however, intervened to scuttle the plan. Five years later, just eleven weeks after Jackie Robinson first stepped onto the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Veeck signed Larry Doby to the Cleveland Indians, making him the first black player in the American League. The following year, he signed the legendary pitcher of the Negro Leagues, Satchel Paige. And in 1949, Cleveland had 11 black and Latino players in spring training as well as African Americans working in the front office, the stadium staff, and the grounds crew. Veeck was indeed a maverick and a showman, but he was also a man of principle and resolve. Not many owners of sports teams merit such a description. Nor could many owners be the subject of such an illuminating and entertaining biography. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

There are three Americans in the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame. One is Horace Wilson, the professor of English who brought his students outside for a game in 1872, thus introducing baseball to Japan. Another is Wally Yonamine, the Hawaii-born Nisei who played professional baseball in Japan in the 1950s (after one season as a running back in the NFL), winning three batting titles and numerous selections to All-Star teams. And the third is Frank “Lefty” O’Doul. A power-hitting outfielder who won two National League batting titles, O’Doul was a member of two teams of American players who toured Japan in 1931 and 1934. O’Doul fell in love with Japan during these visits.  He returned to the country in 1935 to assist in the creation of the Tokyo Giants, a professional team that toured the United States. And he came back again in 1949, this time as the manager of the minor-league San Francisco Seals. With much of the country still in ruins from the war, the Seals’ four-week tour lifted Japanese morale and helped repair Japanese-American relations.  Emperor Hirohito invited O’Doul to the palace to offer his personal thanks. General MacArthur called the Seals’ tour “the best piece of diplomacy ever.” Lefty O’Doul is one of the principal characters of Rob Fitts‘ history of the 1934 tour of Japan by Major League players. O’Doul was joined on the team of “All Americans” by future Hall-of-Famers Jimmie Foxx, Charlie Gehringer, and Lou Gehrig, as well as legendary manager Connie Mack. But the marquee attraction was Babe Ruth, at that time coming to the end of his playing career yet still the biggest star in baseball. Rob’s book, Banzai Babe Ruth: Baseball, Espionage, and Assassination during the 1934 Tour of Japan (University of Nebraska Press, 2012), shows that Ruth was also an international star. Japanese fans swarmed around him at every stop on the tour, and they cheered for his home runs, even when they were part of another lopsided win by the Americans. Japanese fans’ admiration of Ruth and the other American players, and the overall success of the tour, convinced organizers that there was a place for professional baseball in Japan, alongside the well-established and popular high school and college leagues. Two years after the tour, Japan’s professional league played its inaugural season, featuring the Tokyo Giants and six other clubs. For his own part, Ruth came away from the tour with a great affection for Japan. He was then bitterly disappointed seven years later by the attack on Pearl Harbor. As Rob explains in his book and the interview, even during the weeks of the tour, when thousands of Japanese were cheering American players in the streets and stadiums, the forces that would lead to war were moving in society and the military. Babe Ruth and baseball were unable to keep that war from coming. But Lefty O’Doul and baseball were at least able to help repair the damage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

For years, biographers have been fascinated by the Mitfords, a quiet aristocratic British family with six beautiful daughters, nearly all of them famous for their controversial and stylish lives. There’s Nancy, the novelist who had a love affair with Charles de Gaulle’s Chief-of Staff; Pamela, the only sister who opted for a quiet life; Diana, the family beauty who married a Guinness then ditched him in favor of the founder of the British Union of Fascists; Unity, who had a crush on Hitler and unsuccessfully attempted to kill herself on the eve of World War II; Jessica, who eloped with a Communist at the age of 17; and Deborah, who married the Duke of Devonshire. In Leslie Brody‘s Irrepressible (Counterpoint Press, 2010), it’s Jessica Mitford–known throughout her life as Decca– who, at long last, has the chance to shine. She was a rebel almost from infancy. As Brody writes, “Soon after Jessica Mitford moved with her family to Swinbrook House in Oxfordshire, she began to plot her escape from it.” Her escape was spectacular, to be sure. As a teenager, she eloped with Winston Churchill’s nephew and ran off to the Spanish War. The couple eventually settled in America, where Mitford would remain after his death, later remarrying and becoming a journalist. Ultimately, she would be most famous for her expose of the American funeral industry, which was published in 1963 as The American Way of Death, but her work on civil rights and social justice was equally influential. Throughout Irrepressible, Brody includes direct quotes that let Mitford’s unique perspective shine through. And, as a white British woman with Communist leanings, Jessica Mitford provides a view of America- a country with an independent streak as fierce as her own- unlike that of any other. She was a “muckraker” in the truest and best sense of the word. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography