The Sheila Variations

For starters:

My recommended Fiction books

My recommended Non-Fiction books

BIOGRAPHIES:

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, by Joseph Ellis
I’ve written a lot about Joseph Ellis’ work here. While I love David McCullough’s work so much, Ellis is my favorite contemporary commentator on the Founding Fathers. This is not a biography so much as it is a psychological study and – as the title shows – a meditation on the man’s character. There will always be much we do not know and cannot know because Thomas Jefferson kept his secrets. He wasn’t a wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve guy in the way John Adams was. Jefferson had a lot more to hide. Ellis is an elegant and thoughtful writer.

Marlon Brando, by Patricia Bosworth
Part of the Penguin Lives series, this slim volume about Marlon Brando is one of THE ones to read. Do NOT read the Peter Manso unless you feel like throwing a book across a room. It’s vicious and malicious. Bosworth does Brando justice.

Elvis and Gladys, by Elaine Dundy
A unique curio in Elvis-ilia, it’s also an essential part of the conversation, and one of the most important books in helping me get my thoughts together in re: Elvis. It’s a very SOUTHERN book, and goes way WAY into his family tree – the research Dundy did was an essential contribution, and biographers still lean on what she did. Gladys is as big a character as Elvis is, and Dundy really dug into who Gladys was. Elvis truly was his mother’s child. It’s also beautifully written with some REALLY good observations, unique observations that (in my opinion) only a woman could make – at least the (straight) men who have written about Elvis – haven’t dug into the things Dundy did, like his beauty and what it was like for him to be beautiful, and how essential that beauty was to creating the phenomenon of Elvis. It’s hard to talk about but it’s really important.

The Life of Charlotte Brontë , by Elizabeth Gaskell
Gaskell was a novelist and a personal friend of the Bronte family. This book came out in the wake of Charlotte Bronte’s death. It’s still in print, which speaks to the book’s staying power. Filled with Gaskell’s personal observations (she knew them all), it is still a researched piece of work, and one of its main good points is how liberally it quotes from Charlotte’s copious correspondence. Charlotte comes to life. They all do. So Gaskell may have exaggerated, may have played a Mabel Todd-like role in creating the myth of the Brontes, but there’s enough truth here, enough grounding in facts, that you feel like you are entering the Bronte household, you feel like you are eavesdropping, they all appear three-dimensional, living, breathing. An amazing accomplishment. But also: gossipy. Gaskell gloats at her inner circle status. If there is a myth of the Brontes and what their life was like, it can all be traced back to Gaskell’s book.

Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
Maybe my favorite biography ever written. I INHALED it when it first came out, because I’d long been a Hamilton fangirl, from when it was still very unpopular to do so. Every biography you read of any of the other “guys” of the time, he was either ignored or diminished, made peripheral, or like he was some outrageous wayyyy out-there unacceptable threat. I mean, that’s the tone. The problem with dying “too early” is you leave the reputation in the hands of your enemies, and when Hamilton died he had ONLY enemies. Their slander of him lasted 200 years. Until Chernow came along. Richard Brookhiser also wrote a good biography of Hamilton, an admiring biography, which came out in 1999. I met Brookhiser at a Hamilton celebration on the bicentennial of Hamilton’s death at the New York Historical Society (which Hamilton founded, because the man never slept). But anyway, Brookhiser’s book cracked the edifice … and Chernow blew the whole edifice down. IT’S ABOUT TIME.

Zelda: A Biography, by Nancy Milford
This was my Nancy Milford Gateway Drug. It’s the biography Zelda deserves. And it’s not along the lines of “she was the TRUE talent” – the kind of bullshit that’s so common now. Joan Acocella, in her review of a book about Lucia Joyce, James Joyce’s mentally ill daughter, goes AFTER that attitude in a definitive way. Genius isn’t just genius. Genius is also hard work, the ability to concentrate, the ability to block the world out and get to work, the ability to take criticism and not give up, the stick-to-it-ive-ness – do not discount these things. And maybe it’s harder for women to do those things, due to childrearing and everything else (although let’s face it: Zelda had a lot of free time. She and her husband lived in a state of prolonged wild adolescence, children or no). And so: Zelda would start things with passion and focus, and then lose heart and drop them, or lose interest and move on to another obsession. Her husband knew her gift, and they actually wrote a couple pieces together, and he borrowed liberally from her writing (“plagiarism begins at home,” Zelda cracked in one of their shared essays). For various reasons, some of which were not her fault, some of which were, Zelda just could not stick to anything. Zelda was such an interesting (and tragic) person – and she COULD write – which made what happened to her later that much more tragic. She was unstable. And so was he. The party couldn’t go on forever. Once the party stopped, Zelda was lost. Milford treats her subject with empathy and compassion, and has dug into Zelda’s writing – her unfinished novels and stories – so that you really get to hear Zelda unfiltered. It’s a beautiful book.

Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood, by Karina Longworth
Karina Longworth’s fascinating cultural study is also a biography of the elusive Howard Hughes – the amount of research she did is insane. Her footnotes are daunting. I highly recommend this book and reviewed it for the LA Times.

Oscar Wilde, by Richard Ellmann
I loved how much Ellmann focused on Wilde’s absolutely extraordinary parents, both of whom were famous before their son surpassed them both.

Montgomery Clift: A Biography, by Patricia Bosworth
As I wrote when Bosworth just recently died of Covid-19: This is the greatest actor biography ever written. Not only that, but it’s one of the greatest biographies – PERIOD – ever written.

Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams, by Nick Tosches
Nothing like this book. Before or since.

Jean Renoir: A Biography, by Pascal Merigeau, translated by Bruce Benderson
This gigantic book took me about 6 months to complete. It is so detailed you want to faint from admiration. I have not seen all of Renoir’s work and keep meaning to do a complete deep dive – preferably chronlogically.

Orson Welles, Volume 1: The Road to Xanadu, by Simon Callow
Callow’s attention to detail is almost … too much. There’s, like, a 10-page discussion of some paper Welles wrote in the 5th grade, and etc. But I know when I’m in the presence of a Grand Obsessive, and I prefer biographies written by Grand Obsessives (see Joan Schenkar’s biography of Patricia Highsmith, somewhere below), those who are so obsessed they devote years of their lives to delving into said subject. What is so special about thes three-volume biography is 1. Welles warrants this much attention and 2. Callow is an actor, and so he really gets into the technical issues the technique issues the acting/directing style – in ways that are completely gratifying. We need to know how great someone is before we start looking at all the ways they failed/disappointed. And if you don’t even value the greatness of the artist, then honestly I don’t even want to hear your criticisms. (See: many commentaries on John Wayne by liberals who just hate his politics and therefore refuse to taint their lily-white sensibilities with getting into his work – which means they are critiquing him without having even seen him in action. These are not serious people.)

Orson Welles, Volume 2: Hello Americans, by Simon Callow
I still haven’t read Volume 3 yet! This one is pretty upsetting, because Welles starts to fall apart, his reputation starts to disintegrate, and you are seeing the choices made – by him and others – that would banish him from Hollywood and its protection/support for the rest of his life. Nobody likes an outsider who comes in and “shows up everyone” with his very first film. And they particularly don’t like one who does that at the age of 25. They may all ooh-and-ahh over the film, but he will not be embraced wholeheartedly since he didn’t “come up” through the system. Envy is powerful.

Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood, by Todd McCarthy
Since Howard Hawks, one of my favorite directors, was such a tall-tale-teller and braggart (he would claim responsibility for NASA, if he could get away with it), it takes some undoing to unravel all the stories he told. (He’s a braggart in an endearing way … and he also has a right to be proud of what he accomplished, the rules he broke, the new rules he set, etc.) This book is heavily researched and very entertaining, and McCarthy really knows his stuff.

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, by Peter Guralnick
The book was a game-changer. And it was only Volume 1.

Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, by Peter Guralnick
Game Changer, Part 2. I take issue with some of Guralnick’s conclusions and/or interpretations, some of which I have tried to address in my own writing. The way he breaks up the two volumes – the first one takes us up to him joining the Army in 1958 – the second takes us from 1958 to his death in 1977 – is part of the problem and it is the narrative that endures. John Lennon said it: Elvis died when he went into the army. But … no. He didn’t. The man lived for 20 more years, and there was a hell of a lot of great stuff that happened, major recordings, enduring classics, etc. Sure it’s a sad story, he died too soon, but I continue to insist that the way to look at his life is not a steep and slow decline over 20 years. BUT. We all owe Guralnick a huge debt for his thoughtful and humanizing approach. Elvis seems like a real person when you read these books. Guralnick also treats his musicianship and artistry with respect, long overdue. Guralnick understands Elvis’ intelligence.

John Adams, by David McCullough
The book that really launched McCullough, as well as a mini-series. I grew up thinking “John and Abigail” must be family members, since we had relatives in Quincy and we’d have Thanksgiving there, and we’d drive by “John and Abigail’s house” and I wondered if they were going to show up for dinner. True story. My parents told us the story of the American Revolution when we were kids, and it’s just unavoidable growing up where I did. I grew up in a town where Washington actually slept. But McCullough really brings Adams alive, and gets into what is so likable – and also so irritating – about Adams. Adams was flawed. But he was also important. McCullough’s work is popular to the so-called masses and I love it when a really good historian “breaks through” like that.

Edie: American Girl, by Jean Stein, edited by George Plimpton
This was one of THE books of my adolescence. Along with Mary Ellen Mark’s Streetwise, read around the same time, this oral history of Edie Sedgwick ushered me into a deeper understanding of the world, and opened up a whole slice of American cultural history I was unaware of as a 15-year-old girl growing up in the 1980s. Characters emerged. It was through this book I learned about Patti Smith, for example. I had to go out and buy her albums because of her presence in this book. Same with Andy Warhol. I was so fascinated by the whole scene. I sought out Andy Warhol’s movies. And this was slightly difficult back then. The VCR days. I saw Ciao Manhattan when I was 17, and became obsessed. Mitchell and I dressed up as Edie and Andy for Halloween during an epic costume party I threw at my house in college. The obsession had not diminished.

A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families, by Michael Holroyd
The kind of biography that feels like it was written for me specifically. About famous Victorian-era theatre company The Lyceum, headed up by beloved stage star Ellen Terry and phenomenal actor-director-manager Henry Irving. A dual biography. GREAT history of the theatre of the era (Bram Stoker was involved at the Lyceum), as well as really smart on acting, and who these people were as actors. (I’ve written about both Terry and Irving before: we can only imagine what these productions were like – but this book is filled with eyewitness testimony from audience members).

His Excellency: George Washington, by Joseph Ellis
See above my praise of Joseph Ellis. I’m slightly behind in keeping up with his work. There was a good 10 years, though, when I bought everything he wrote basically upon its publication date. This is a gorgeous book about Washington, and a companion piece to the Jefferson bio. Ellis also wrote one on John Adams (Passionate Sage). I recommend all three. These men intersected, they were all so different. Alone, they would have been disastrous. We needed Adams to counteract Jefferson and vice versa, we needed Washington’s generalship – and most important – we needed him to step down after two terms. A peaceful transfer of power: an example to the world that such a thing can be done, and he showed it was possible. It may be his most important contribution. (His famous and gorgeous farewell address waswritten by Alexander Hamilton. Of course.)

Nureyev: The Life, by Julie Kavanagh
An engrossing biography of a fascinating figure, whose life encompassed so much: the Cold War, his famous defection, his soaring (literally) triumphs, his collaboration with Margot Fonteyn and finally his AIDS diagnosis. Kavanagh really knows her stuff. I associate this book with 2009 when I stopped being able to read. I was so caught up with grieving and then having a total fucking nervous breakdown in June-July-August – if you go back and read those months here on the blog you can see the quick deterioration – it’s hair-raising even to me to watch how I stopped being able to use language properly. I’ve considered deleting all of it but figure, well, no, it’s a record of what happened. And at least when I posted song lyrics or a photo I felt that I was somehow still connected to the world. Years later, when I got diagnosed with my mental illness, I told the main doctor treating me about 2009 and how I stopped being able – literally – to read. I couldn’t grasp language anymore. It took me forever to even process a paragraph. I’d have to re-read short paragraphs three times in order to absorb it. It was devastating because if ever I needed the escape of reading it was in 2009 and escape was barred to me. The doc told me that grief as I was experiencing it is actually a brain injury which shows up on CT scans, just like a concussion does. Your brain is injured, your brain is in the process of trying to protect you and heal itself and therefore things like language and comprehension as well as attention span will have to wait. I had no idea. He told me too that the brain can heal itself. Which also bore out in my life. By 2010 I was able to read again, although not with the voracious speed I had had pre-2009. AT ANY RATE: during that terrible year when I only could complete 14 books, as opposed to the normal 50 or 60 … this book about Nureyev was one of the few books I was able to finish. It took me almost the whole year (normally it would take me a month). I was so upset at how long it was taking me to get through it. This is not at all to say the book is a slog: the opposite is true. It’s just that I was heavily compromised when I read it. In many ways, the book became symbolic to me. I am going to finish this book, dammit.

Capote: A Biography, by Gerald Clarke
It really says something about Clarke’s book that it was published in 1988 and so far nothing has knocked it off its throne. One of the best biographies I’ve ever read: the final years are so harrowing to read you almost can’t wait for it to be over, even as you know the book being over means that the subject has died.

Lindbergh, by A. Scott Berg
An extraordinary book about an amazing man, with the most improbable journey, a journey he seems almost born to. And then the controversies (the ultimate understatement) of his WWII shenanigans, particularly that horrifying unforgettable picture of him receiving the medal from Goering. I initially “came to” Lindbergh through his wife’s journals, 5 gigantic volumes dating from the early 20s into the 40s. I read them when I was in high school. I was into HER, not really him, and she’s a wonderful and engaging writer. Once I learned more of the backstory, I paid much closer attention to her WWII journal (entitled War Within War Without), where she grew increasingly conflicted about her husband’s involvement with America First (history repeats itself. But you have to actually KNOW history to “grok” this), and then I started to perceive the excuses she made for him (the most infamous being her TERRIBLE small book The Wave of the Future which basically said: Fascism is the future, and we can’t stop it, nor should we. Not because fascism is good but because it’s a necessary part of our development … or some such muddled nonsense. She was pilloried for it, and rightly so, and it was seen as apologia for her husband, again rightly so). Anyway, I digress. A. Scott Berg treats the life as a whole though, and that’s refreshing in our particular era where … people basically decide so-and-so isn’t even worth learning about because of abhorrent views or terrible behavior or whatever. I have so many books on Stalin and Hitler on my shelves. I’ve read Mein Kampf because I want to know what the dude said. Not because I agree but because if you don’t understand these two guys then you can’t understand the 20th century. You may think you already know. In which case … congratulations on being incurious and dumb. Lindbergh’s journey spans from the teens to the 60s, and he was a part of every major event in those years, due to his fame and then infamy: it’s one of those biographies where you don’t just learn about the man, you get to know about his era in an on-the-ground in-real-time way. What Lindbergh did goes way beyond “terrible behavior”, of course (side note: my Special Ops pal, who is a pilot and admires Lindbergh’s pioneering in aviation, and knows way more about it than I ever could, believes that Lindbergh’s actions during WWII came as a result of him being in the employ of the US government, on the payroll as it were, in a secret way, to gather insider information about the development of the German airforce: that he was, essentially, a spy. I don’t call my friend Special Ops for nothing. And incidentally it’s one of my nicknames too. He really is Special Forces and Intelligence. Anyway: it is his belief – and he’s not alone – that Lindbergh’s cozying up to the Germans was deliberate in order to gather information which he then would pass on to the State/War Department. Now you may not buy this and I’m not sure I do – especially when you read Lindbergh’s speeches for America First – but I for one don’t think it can be entirely discounted, and my Special Ops friend is not, to put it mildly, a credulous idiot.) BE THAT AS IT MAY: Lindbergh was a famous man: the first to fly across the Atlantic. He was as famous as Elvis. Plus: the gorgeous looks! Slam-dunk. Then, THEN, there was the kidnapping and murder of his baby son. And it’s pretty much 100% that the wrong man was accused/executed for the crime. Horrifying. And THEN as WWII heated up in Europe, he became an isolationist making terrible speeches where he referenced the Jews and that they needed to take some responsibility. His wife read the text of that speech before he made it and BEGGED him to cut that part out. He refused. And so here we are today. It’s not a surprise that the specter of Lindbergh becoming President is the alternate-history Philip Roth draws out in Plot Against America, although the ending shows a kind of naivete, in light of our current reality. We will not bounce back from this so easily. Our institutions have been shattered. All of this is examined and brought forth in intimate detail in this massive biography and Berg is such a good writer it’s a pleasure to read.

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., by Ron Chernow
In the Sheila Pantheon of Great Contemporary Biographers lie only a couple of names: Patricia Bosworth (RIP), Nancy Milford, Joseph Ellis, David McCullough and Ron Chernow. My friend Allison read this book and raved about it and so I read it. I, of course, had already read his centuries-overdue biography of Alexander Hamilton, which almost made me cry since I was a Hamilton Stan since high school. One of Chernow’s specialties is focusing on figures who have much to do with economics, with finance, with banking, with MONEY. I am not a math/money person and one of the things I appreciate so much about his writing is how clear it is, and how he explains things in a way I can understand. Similar to Lindbergh, Rockefeller’s journey is one of the most improbable – and impactful – in American history. The whole Rockefeller clan amazes me: with all their rapacious business practices, they used their money to, oh, create public libraries across the land, establish Johns Hopkins, create freakin’ MoMA, create the Cloisters, here in New York, to buy up land in New Jersey across the Hudson and establish an extended “Palisades” where no development was allowed, so that you get an unbroken forest stretching up the cliffside … anyway, these people helped make America a better place in HOW they used their enormous wealth. I highly recommend this fascinating book.

James Joyce, by Richard Ellmann
One of the greatest biographies ever written. Don’t argue unless you’ve read it.

Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams, by Lyle Leverich
I am grateful this book exists. I am also so saddened that Leverich died before he could write Volume 2. Volume 1 ends with the triumphant run of Glass Menagerie in Chicago. The book is so wonderful, so gorgeously written, I could not wait for the sequel. I waited years. This was before I could just Google shit to figure out what was going on. Eventually I somehow learned that Leverich had died. I remember telling my friend Ted this (he had loved Tom as much as I did) and he gasped, “Oh no!” Not just because of his death but because that meant we wouldn’t get Volume 2. I still wonder what his Volume 2 would have been like – how much did he finish? Apparently, he knew he was ill and hand-picked John Lahr to complete Volume 2. But John Lahr had a different “take” on TW than Leverich – which, of course, is fine – and so his Volume 2 feels definitely like a “break” with Volume 1, and therefore, I don’t care for Lahr’s book. There are great anecdotes and all the rest, but Lahr’s book feels gossipy. Plus, he analyzes ALL of the plays as if they were literal autobiographies, a huge no-no in my book when you’re dealing with an artist. What about the IMAGINATION? Of course TW was a personal writer, but Lahr’s treatment of this feels like grade-school shit. “So this means this and that means that and it all is tied up nicely in a little psychoanalytic bow.” He feels on solid ground with backstage gossip and he feels WAY out of his depth in literary analysis. Whereas Lyle Leverich had both, AND his book doesn’t read like an extended Page Six. C’est la vie. Read Tom. It’s gorgeous.

Built of Books: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde, by Thomas Wright
This book feels like it was written specifically for me. It’s about Oscar Wilde’s library: all the books he owned, and how each book or author had influenced him.

The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family, by Mary S. Lovell
You can’t even believe these sisters existed. You also can’t believe that a prestige mini-series hasn’t been made about these sisters. Each one is more fascinating than the last. I suppose they were created by extraordinary times. But still. This is a bit more extraordinary than most. The image of Decca carving a hammer and sickle onto the pane of glass in the bedroom window she shared with her sister Unity … and then Unity carving a swastika. Teenage girls battling it out on their bedroom walls. Crazy.

Marie Antoinette: The Journey, by Antonia Fraser
A classic. Similar to Ron Chernow’s Hamilton, this book was a major chip in the armor of the legend, the official story. You wouldn’t look at Marie Antoinette in quite the same way again after reading this book. Sofia Coppola clearly felt the same way.

John Wayne: The Life and Legend, by Scott Eyman
A superb biography I feel like I’ve been waiting for my whole life. FINALLY. The man put into context by someone who admires his work. I can’t wait to read Eyman’s next book, on Cary Grant. Grant has also not been served well by biographers.

The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith, by Joan Schenkar
Most of the books on this list I have written about here at one time or another. This one I’ve written quite a lot about because it’s one of the most unique biographies I’ve ever read. Even the way it’s structured … it’s not chronological, it’s not linear. It’s broken up into themes/categories/sub-categories, with repetitive-titled chapters, so you can locate yourself not in TIME, but in THEME. Joan Schenkar is truly obsessed with Patricia Highsmith, and that obsession leads her to be bold, brave, free … in ways you don’t get with other biographies. She was fascinated by Highsmith’s duplicitousness (Highsmith even lied in her journal, to throw anyone who might peek off the scent), and so Schenkar devised a structure that helped dig into Highsmith’s hierarchy of lies and obfuscations, the various smoke screens Highsmith erected to shield her inner world. Anyway. One of my favorite biographies ever.

Lost Highway: Journeys and Arrivals of American Musicians, by Peter Guralnick
This book is made up of mini-biographies of all these great figures in rhythm & blues and country music. From Furry Lewis to Merle Haggard. Beautifully written. Guralnick is not just a historian – but a journalist who saw all of these artists in person and interviewed all of them. Because of this, his stuff is very humanizing, plus he gives his own perspective and observations on their performing styles and behavior.

Grant, by Ron Chernow
I read this fascinating biography last year. Another fascinating figure with yet another improbable journey – from where he started to where he ended up would blow your mind. From war hero to President, and what a corrupt Presidency it was. Chernow’s contention is that it was Grant’s naivete that put him in bed with such hooligans, and also – the system then was being corrupted quicker than anyone could grasp. It’s a great commentary on the problems of graft – which have since grown to epic proportions. I haven’t read Chernow’s biography of Washington, which I must. Ellis’ book did great things to get us into Washington’s world and experience … but I’m sure Chernow will bring even more to it.

Utopia Parkway: The Life and Work of Joseph Cornell, by Deborah Solomon
The only biography about Joseph Cornell. Joseph Cornell is a tough one because he lived a life with almost no surface events. He didn’t marry. He didn’t fight in a war. He didn’t do drugs. He didn’t party it up in Greenwich Village. He barely left Manhattan. I think once he went to the Jersey Shore. He most probably died a virgin. He stayed at home, on Utopia Parkway (it’s just too perfect), living with his mother and his brother who had cerebral palsy and needed full-time care. He spent his days scrounging through second-hand shops up and down Second Avenue, and going to movies, obsessing on movie stars, and eating in Automats. Then he would go home to Utopia Parkway and create the famous “boxes” which now sit in some of the most prestigious museums in the world. I know a lot about Joseph Cornell because I was involved in a workshop production of a play about his life. A fascinating gentle man, a wonderful artist, whose final words were, “I wish I had not been so reserved.”

The Brontës, by Juliet Barker
If you were around when this gigantic door-stop of a book came out, then you remember the brou-haha. Barker went at her subject with a battering ram made up of thousands of footnotes. No stone left unturned. Church records. Land deeds. The whole nine yards. Her contention was that the “myth” of the Brontes – as established by Elizabeth Gaskell’s famous biography of Charlotte Bronte – still in print to this day – was, if not balderdash, then a huge exaggeration. The Brontes were not the wild feral girls of popular imagination, stuck out on the moors with no one to talk to. Barker re-established their world as very social, with many gatherings, and church events, and etc. They were part of a small but bustling community. It’s hard to dispel a myth which has lasted almost two centuries. This book is not playing around. Just one look at it and you know you’re in for it. But, just like Chernow’s bio of Hamilton, there were centuries of myths/rumors/speculations/exaggerations to combat.

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay, by Nancy Milford
I mentioned my love of Nancy Milford’s work above. She’s wonderful. Edna St. Vincent Millay was not a particularly likable person. Lock up your husbands when she comes around. But it’s fascinating to read about a woman who played so by her own rules, who knew no social mores or any reasons that should stop her from doing whatever the hell she wanted to do. She was famous almost instantly, plucked out for fame when she was just a teenager. Her poetry readings were EVENTS. I love her poetry and it was really interesting learning about her life.

Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia, by Janet Wallach
I was involved in an experimental theatre production of a life of Gertrude Bell, one of the founders of modern-day Iraq. Often referred to as the female Lawrence of Arabia, Gertrude Bell fell in love with the Middle East the first time she visited, and kept going back. She became embroiled in the politics, knew everybody, and was a trusted advisor to sheikhs and desert Bedouin and all the rest. Her accomplishment is, of course, not exactly positive and much of today’s troubles date back to the carving up of the Middle East post-WWI, with all of these artificial borders imposed. These borders are still problematic today. Nevertheless: fascinating woman and if you want to know about the all-important geopolitical issues which helped create the modern Middle East – the rapacious empires eager to cut up this ancient land into pie pieces – this book gives a great background. Gertrude Bell is buried in Baghdad. The experimental production I was in was some years back, and we did it in a huge warehouse performance space in Dumbo (in Brooklyn), and I had to learn (some) Arabic, and at one point, when I was making a speech about the glories of Mesopotamia, behind me on a gigantic screen was projected the scene in Lawrence of Arabia with the camels racing towards each other. I wore a pith helmet. I made a whole speech in Arabic. I sweated over that, let me tell you. The director was a fabulous young Iranian woman, who was confident, inspiring, and knew exactly what she wanted. It was a great experience and I learned a lot.

Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story, by Nick Tosches
See above. What is so extraordinary about THIS biography is it was written while Jerry Lee Lewis was still alive (and of course he is STILL alive today). Tosches is dead but JLL lives? Whoda thunk it. The book is bleak and frightening. I challenge anyone to write about JLL and provide as much insight as Tosches does.

James Dean: The Mutant King: A Biography, by David Dalton
This book was the start of a lot of things for me. I became obsessed with James Dean early, 12/13 years old, and because I worked in a library after school I could easily do research in those days before the Internet. That public library had a very healthy Entertainment section, with all kinds of bios, all of which I read over the course of my high school years. I read Capra’s autobiography. Carroll Baker’s. Elia Kazan’s. And the library had a copy of The Mutant King, still a really important text in James-Dean-Lore. I devoured it. I drank in the pictures. I read paragraphs over and over again. I was so INTRIGUED by this actor. I couldn’t get a HANDLE on him. I think that’s part of his eternal appeal.

Elvis, by Dave Marsh
One of the best books about Elvis, written at what feels like white-hot urgent speed – it feels like he wrote it in a weekend, hyped up with outrage and pain and a desperation to explain – to INSIST – on Elvis’ importance. Written in the immediate aftermath of Elvis’ death, Marsh was anguished to watch how Elvis was dragged through the mud – first, in the book by his bodyguards, published a month before Elvis died – and then in the feeding frenzy after Elvis’ death. The man’s WORK was not being discussed. Marsh was furious. That fury – and that love – ignites his book. You can read it in a day. And the final two paragraphs make me weep.