CARL ROLLYSON
Mr. Rollyson is the author of The Life of William Faulkner and The Last Days of…
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Janet Malcolm Hides Behind Photography
Photographs in this book are evasions as much as they are revelations. Since Malcolm cannot trust memory, she analyzes photographs, which, paradoxically, can only come to full life by the use of her memory.
Couples Biography: Wives’ Tales
What does it say about a wife if the conclusion is reached that she was not the weaker partner and yet put up with an unequal spouse? A group biography answering that question needs to be written.
Francine Prose Liberates Cleopatra
With a few notable exceptions, the queen has been the captive of male biographers who have emphasized her malign and duplicitous behavior.
Women of Early Hollywood Gradually Getting Their Due
The actresses discussed here share a certain dignity and, as Margaret Dumont’s biographers put it, ‘a memorable vulnerability and eternally renewable faith in the chance of sanity in a lunatic world.’
The Poetry of Biography
Iris Jamahl Dunkle writes poems as a way into biography, of locating the gaps in what is known. Her biography of writer Charmian Kittredge London is out along with a book of poems charting her progress.
Women’s History to the Rescue
There is a kind of heroism in biography itself that is seldom understood, let alone celebrated, but these books make a start.
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