Stacy Schiff, author of 'Cleopatra: A Life,' on the perfect biography subject
Hint: The answer is, there is no answer.
Oct 07, 2011
Chicago Tribune
By Elizabeth Taylor
Oct. 5, 2011
Heartbroken by my failure to hear biographer Stacy Schiff speak when she was in Chicago last week, I lassoed her by email to discuss one of my favorite subjects: biography.
Q: What is essential to the perfect biography subject?
A: In an ideal world, the perfect biographical subject would have been the star of his penmanship class at grade school — and would thereafter write an English that positively sings. His or her papers should be accessible though not too accessible, and within a 3-hour drive from your front door. His friends should all have photographic memories, should still be alive, and should not have spoken already to 15 previous biographers — you don't want the recycled stories. They should not be legion; you are not looking to interview every member of the 1969 NASA team. Your subject should have lived between the advent of the typewriter and that of e-mail. Ideally he would have died young: Mozart, Keats, Pocahontas. It helps tremendously if he is likeable, or at least admirable. I could go on, but you see that I have rarely wound up with a perfect subject. Saint-Exupery may have come closest. With him the timing was certainly ideal: Some of the early aviation pioneers were still alive, as were the young Americans with whom Saint-Exupery flew at the end of his life, as were the girlfriends. All were eager to talk, and many had never really done so. After him I swore the next subject would have lived his or life in a Romance language; have had a sense of humor that rivaled Saint-Exupery's; and written as fine a letter. I wound up with Vera Nabokov, who did none of those things.
For the rest, the old dramatic adage is true: Keep your hero in trouble. And I do see the perfect subject as publishers see the perfect author: dead.
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Oct 07, 2011
Chicago Tribune
By Elizabeth Taylor
Oct. 5, 2011
Heartbroken by my failure to hear biographer Stacy Schiff speak when she was in Chicago last week, I lassoed her by email to discuss one of my favorite subjects: biography.
Q: What is essential to the perfect biography subject?
A: In an ideal world, the perfect biographical subject would have been the star of his penmanship class at grade school — and would thereafter write an English that positively sings. His or her papers should be accessible though not too accessible, and within a 3-hour drive from your front door. His friends should all have photographic memories, should still be alive, and should not have spoken already to 15 previous biographers — you don't want the recycled stories. They should not be legion; you are not looking to interview every member of the 1969 NASA team. Your subject should have lived between the advent of the typewriter and that of e-mail. Ideally he would have died young: Mozart, Keats, Pocahontas. It helps tremendously if he is likeable, or at least admirable. I could go on, but you see that I have rarely wound up with a perfect subject. Saint-Exupery may have come closest. With him the timing was certainly ideal: Some of the early aviation pioneers were still alive, as were the young Americans with whom Saint-Exupery flew at the end of his life, as were the girlfriends. All were eager to talk, and many had never really done so. After him I swore the next subject would have lived his or life in a Romance language; have had a sense of humor that rivaled Saint-Exupery's; and written as fine a letter. I wound up with Vera Nabokov, who did none of those things.
For the rest, the old dramatic adage is true: Keep your hero in trouble. And I do see the perfect subject as publishers see the perfect author: dead.
Read more