What a Biography Really Reveals

Earlier this month, the Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winning author David McCullough died. Over five decades,he wrote many books about American history, including ones about the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and the 1889 Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood, but he was especially known for two presidential biographies, and Both were best sellers and landmark achievements; both took him years to complete. Because of the level ofcommitment these projects required, : “It’s like picking a roommate,” he once said. He’s not alone in that sentiment. In a late-in-life memoir, James—more than the chance to brush up against the lives of the famous—was “long days in the company of someone I had never met but would come to know better than anyone else in the world.”