Robert Caro on How To Write a Biography
By: Emmanuel Rosado
Tags: Biography, History, Books, Writing, Journalism

On Monday, April 15, 2019, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Caro joined Friends of the LBJ Library to speak about his new book, Working, a collection of vivid, candid, and deeply revealing stories about researching and writing his acclaimed books. (LBJ Library photo by Jay Godwin)

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 was in the process of writing one of his Lyndon Johnson books, was ready to throw a punch at the poor mortal who dared to interrupt his work. He would eventually calm down and apologize.) Moreover, it takes him from seven to eight years to research and write a biography. What is the source of all this energy? For Caro, it’s all about understanding “power”.

Caro’s new book “is not a full-fledged memoir”. He makes it clear in the first pages. Instead, he wants to show: “how I do research in documents; how I report, either on the scene or by interviewing; how I write.” Caro was educated in Horace Mann in New York. His mother died when he barely was eleven and she made his father promise her to take him to such school. In a home with no books and with low income, Caro’s experience in Horace Mann shaped him. He wrote short stories for the school paper -Horace Mann Record.

He later went to Princeton University to write for the school paper. It was in these first writings that Robert Caro notice something in particular:

I always like finding out how things work and trying to explain them to people. It was a vague, inchoate feeling -I don’t think of it in terms of Why do I want to be a reporter? At Princeton, I was the paper’s sportswriter and I had a column, but I found myself writing more about the coach and bout how he coached than about how the team was actually doing. I think figuring things out and trying to explain the, was always a part of it.

Not just writing about the coach, but wanting to write about the circumstances that shaped the context.

The first piece of advice that would follow Robert Caro throughout his career was given to him by a professor of his, R.P. Blackmur. Caro was always finishing written assignments -short stories- for a creative writing course at the last moment. He noticed that this soft-spoken man never raised the issue that his work showed last-minute craft. Instead, he always gave Caro complimentary comments. It wasn’t until the end of the course that the professor told the future National Book Award winner: “[But] you’re never going to achieve what you want to, Mr. Caro, if you don’t stop thinking with your fingers.”

When Caro graduated from Princeton University, he had offers from The New York Times. But, because he had no preexisting experience, he had to start as a copy boy. He eventually would find his way to Newsday, where he did minor jobs. He later found himself doing investigative reporting. He even got nominated for a Pulitzer. It was here, that Robert Caro heard another piece of advice that would stay with him for the rest of his career. His editor in Newsday, Alan Hathway, told him one day -when digging some archives about a scandal in New York- to “turn every page”.