This week, biographers and novelists share what it is like to write about other writers. Mary V. Dearborn covers Carson McCullers, George Getschow covers Larry McMurtry, Harold Holzer covers Abraham Lincoln, and Monika Zgutsova covers Véra Nabokov. Moderated by Peter Coviello. This conversation took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.
The books:
Carson McCullers: A Life by Mary V. Dearborn — The first major biography in more than twenty years of one of America’s greatest writers, based on newly available letters and journals.
Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life and Legacy of Larry McMurtry edited by George Getschow — A collection of essays that offers an intimate view of Larry McMurtry, America's preeminent western novelist, through the eyes of a pantheon of writers he helped shape through his work over the course of his unparalleled literary life.
Brought Forth on This Continent: Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration by Harold Holzer — From acclaimed Abraham Lincoln historian Harold Holzer, a groundbreaking account of Lincoln's grappling with the politics of immigration against the backdrop of the Civil War.
A Revolver to Carry at Night by Monika Zgustova — A captivating, nuanced portrait of the life of Véra Nabokov, who dedicated herself to advancing her husband’s writing career, playing a vital role in the creation of his greatest works.
Is There God After Prince?: Dispatches from an Age of Last Things by Peter Coviello — Essays considering what it means to love art, culture, and people in an age of accelerating disaster.
The writers:
MARY V. DEARBORN holds a doctorate in English and comparative literature from Columbia University, where she was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities. She is the author of seven books—among them, Mistress of Modernism: The Life of Peggy Guggenheim and Ernest Hemingway. Dearborn has been a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She lives in Buckland, Massachusetts.
GEORGE GETSCHOW is a Pulitzer Prize finalist for National Reporting and winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Award for distinguished writing about the underprivileged. He has earned numerous other awards for his writing and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2012 for "distinctive literary achievement." Today, as director of the Archer City Writers Workshop, he helps organize and conduct annual writing workshops in Archer City for professional writers and college and high school students from across the country.
HAROLD HOLZER is the recipient of the 2015 Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize. One of the country's leading authorities on Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the Civil War era, Holzer was appointed chairman of the US Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission by President Bill Clinton and awarded the National Humanities Medal by
