Good Friday Double: #2: Personal Interest vs. the Marketplace

Here it is, as promised: My second Good Friday post. This one relates to the question of selecting a topic for a book.

I was recently on a panel for adults about nonfiction at 826 Valencia, the writing center for kids in San Francisco, established by Dave Eggers. One of the issues that came up was how to select a topic for a book.

One of the other panelists noted that you must find a subject that you can live with for years, that you shouldn't try to write about what you think will be commercially successful. I agree, but with a few nuances.

First, what can sometimes seem like commercialization might actually be a way of taking your initial topic, and going bigger—escalating the scale of your project, in an ambitious and exciting way. This happened with my book Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. I initially thought of writing about Adelbert Ames, a Union "boy general" in the Civil War (he was made a brigadier general when still in his 20s) who was stationed in Mississippi during Reconstruction, championed the cause of racial equality, and left the army to pursue a political career. He was an admirable man in an age noted for violence, crookedness, and racism.

But no one had heard of him. When I discovered that he had been the target of the failed bank robbery by the James-Younger gang in Northfield, Minnesota, in 1876, I realized that I could write about the same period, and the same issues, on a larger scale, as well as for a larger audience. Jesse James is iconic; he lives in American culture and memory, as Ames does not. Therefore, in writing about James rather than Ames I would be taking on a much more ambitious project, with larger repercussions.

Did that decision make it more commercial? Well, yes. But it was more commercial because Jesse James is a more resonant subject, one who plays a vastly larger role in America's self-identity. 

But I also believe that you must be true to yourself in picking a subject. You can't escape yourself; many writers end up writing about the same subjects or themes in book after book. In most writers, there are elemental issues and questions that provide the forward thrust. The issues of race, justice, violence, and the making of modern America defined both James and Ames's lives, so switching from one to the other was still entirely in keeping with my core interests. It never occurred to me that I was selling out.

So my advice is not to pursue commercial subjects for their own sake, but to think about how you can go bigger—how you can make your project even more ambitious. If you can do that, there almost certainly will be a commercial benefit; but if you are inauthentic in picking a subject, and simply force yourself to write about something that will sell, then the work will suffer. It won't be a book that you'll be proud of.

Good Friday Double: #1: Greg Mortenson

Having been a bad blogger for some time now (having spent almost 6 weeks traveling), I present to you two writing-related entries.

First, Greg Mortenson. For those of you who threw out your televisions ages ago and don't pay attention to news on the Internet, the author of the runaway bestseller Three Cups of Tea was the subject of a 60 Minutes investigation about two things: the misuse of funds belonging to his charity, and the truth of his book.

I can't speak to the first. My reactions to the second are mixed. I would like to make three points about this frenzy:

First, beware of frenzies, especially the feeding kind. Since I myself have raised questions about the honesty of other books, I think it's entirely appropriate to challenge what appear to be glaring inaccuracies, fictionalization, and outright lies. But there are good reasons why it's a cliché to warn against a rush to judgment—said rushing is unfair to the accused and sometimes ill-considered. Let's hear Mr. Mortenson out, and wait calmly for the facts to emerge.

Second, the press has once again made an error by denouncing book publishers for not fact-checking books. The legal and business relationship between book publishers and books is different from that of newspaper or magazine publishers and the stories in those newspapers or magazines. The author, not the publisher, is responsible for the accuracy of the content; the publisher helps fund, prepare, package, and distribute the final result, but is in no way the author. This is in contrast to newspapers and magazines.

I will add that the business would collapse if book publishers had to hire fact checkers. Individual books are simply too long, and there are too many books coming out of most houses each year, for it to be a practical option. Of course, some publisher may decide that fact-checing would be a market advantage and try it out, but since that hasn't happened yet, we can assume it's a bad bet, economically speaking.

Third, since nonfiction authors are solely responsible for the accuracy of their books, they are REALLY responsible for the accuracy of their books. Honesty, transparency, and accuracy matter immensely, and the author is under a heavy burden to provide all three.

But they are in a descending order. Speaking to the last, first, we must accept the fact that every book will have some errors; accuracy is never perfect. But errors can be found and corrected if the writing is transparent—that is, if the author notes all the sources, and clearly states to the reader when a passage is based on uncertain information, or is entirely supposition or fictionalization. The reader generally gives a writer a fair amount of leeway when the author admits a lack of perfect knowledge. And that proper transparency is itself a product of honesty—of writing with integrity, of being truthful with oneself as well as the reader. There is a difference between good-faith mistakes and wholesale invention.

I will blog more about the issue of accuracy and integrity in a forthcoming post, related to a book review I wrote that will be published soon by the Washington Post. Remember the name E.M. Forster. He'll come up in that blog post.

The Secret Message

Today is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. On this day, my great-great grandfather Jonathan Dillon was holding Lincoln's watch, fixing it, and he left a secret message inside of it.

Here's the story I wrote about it two years ago:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/03/the-secret-message/7360/

My Gratitude

It was announced this week that I've been honored with a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Popularly known simply as "the Guggenheim," it's an award intended for artists, writers, scientists, and scholars who have a record of accomplishment, with the promise of doing still more.

I applied for the Guggenheim, so the news didn't rain down on my head with that entirely unexpected quality of the announcement of the Pulitzer Prize, but rather came at the end of a long wait. I never assumed that I would be selected, and I am deeply honored and humbled that I was. I'm acutely aware that my receiving a fellowship means that someone else who is entirely deserving did not receive one this year. Had the selection committee and the trustees of the Foundation passed me over, there would have been no outraged editorials in newspapers or picket lines outside the John Simon Guggenheim offices. Rather, someone else instead of me would be happy and honored. Furthermore, the fellowship goes to a broad array of artists, writers, and scholars; balancing the distribution of the limited funds is an enormously difficult task. I am exceptionally fortunate that I was selected this year.

For anyone doing something like what I do, I think it's important to bear this in mind. We do not gain recognition unless we work at as high a level as we can, unless we labor and struggle and devote ourselves to our projects. Ambition and sacrifice are essential components for success. But at the end of the process, when a book is complete, I'm aware that it could have been better, that equally good or better books are being published all the time. No matter how hard you work, you are owed nothing. You have no right to anything. And when recognition like the Guggenheim does come, it is only because of the support, feedback, and assistance of friends and colleagues, from those who wrote letters of reference, to archivists who suggested I look here, to historians who urged me to read that. And especially my wife, Jessica Stiles, who is a genius. Writing, seemingly a solitary art, in fact requires the help of countless people, especially in the case of biography. My heartfelt thanks to all.

I urge those who could benefit from a fellowship to keep working and keep applying. This was not my first application.

So, no matter what previous recognition I've received, it's a matter of very good fortune to be picked for this fellowship, and I'm truly grateful to the Foundation. It's a marvelous thing that the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation exists, and does what it does.

In the Archives

Did you know the Archivist of the United States has a blog?

Yes, he does. His name is David Ferriero (rhymes with "stereo"). I met him when I had a fellowship at the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, where he was (I'm going to mess up his title, so forgive me) executive director. Of course, this was before he was named Archivist of the United States. His appointment to run the National Archives is a fortunate thing for people like me, who make heavy use of the Archives. He's that rare person assigned to a post by a president simply because he was the right individual for the job, a professional rather than a political hack.

During my (still ongoing) research trip to Washington, D.C., I had a chance to have lunch with him and discuss what he's trying to do with the Archives. It's exciting. I know that sounds nerdy, but it is exciting. It's a big organization, with 44 facilities, I believe, around the country. He's shaking things up, but he's also trying to build lines of communication within the agency, to give voice to staff at all levels.  His blog is just one sign of how he's attuned to the digital age, in terms of record keeping, preservation, and access, and in the ways it can be used internally.

One of his concerns is to make better use of "citizen archivists." He notes, quite correctly, that when researchers dig through the vast holdings of the National Archives, the findings often fail to make their way back to the Archives staff. I completely agree with this. Much of my work on Cornelius Vanderbilt for The First Tycoon was conducted in the Manuscript Department of the New York Public Library. I wrote up a report of the material I found there, for use by future researchers. (I also included a bibliographical essay at the end of the book for the same reason.)

Here's to AOTUS: He's far from the only talented and dedicated employee at the National Archives, but all those staffers who care and work hard need someone at the top who is serious about the mission, and about making the place work better.



The Three R's...including Rhistory (the "r" is silent)

I know I haven't posted in a month. It's largely because I've been away for weeks, and have been overloaded when I've been home. Lectures, research, and some vacation time with family—all necessary, but not conducive to blogging.

One question I've been asked to discuss is the devaluing of history in education, as we emphasize fundamentals. Yes, it concerns me a great deal—that is, it both worries me, and affects my profession, even though I don't teach.

The best way to teach reading is to give kids something worth reading. I see history as a two-for-one deal: Children learn essential knowledge of the past, and they must develop reading skills to do it. More than that, the proper teaching of history also imparts critical thinking, judgment in assessing conflicting sources, and (of course) an understanding of who we are and where we came from.

Take, for example, the Bill of Rights. I like to point out that the Bill of Rights was applied only to federal law, not state law, until ratification of the 14th Amendment, which was an attempt to grapple with the consequences of emancipation.* John Bingham, the key drafter of the 14th Amendment, used the opportunity not only to extend civil rights to former slaves, but to extend the Bill of Right's protections over civil liberties against state law as well. That mattered a great deal, because until that time the federal government passed very few laws that affected individual liberty, though states did so quite often.

In other words, the freedom that we think of as an American birthright only became a functional reality because of the struggle over race and slavery, a struggle pushed by African Americans themselves. In a way, black people, in gaining their freedom, helped free white people as well. Or, to put it another way, in grappling with our greatest flaw as a nation, we cemented our greatest strength as a nation.

I find this kind of contemplation of the past to be enormously exciting. Here are tremendous stories of communities, churches, armies, legislatures, and most of all individuals; here we find great writing, important speeches, compelling arguments, and core civic values. If studying history doesn't develop reading and writing skills, what does?

One of the great champions of teaching history was the late Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. He pushed through the Teaching American History (TAH) program, which extends grants to educate high-school teachers in American history. I've taken part in more than one of these projects, and I think it's a marvelous program, one that encourages thoughtful consideration of the past, rather than some orthodoxy or another. Unfortunately, TAH has been targeted for elimination in the ongoing federal budget crisis. That's a shame. It would punish our children, and diminish our appreciation for our remarkable history and identity.

Let's hope it survives.
—————————
* To be precise, it was not applied against state governments until the twentieth century, long after the 14th Amendment was ratified, but this "incorporation" against the states was based on the first section of the 14th Amendment, as its primary framer intended.