Stories
Biography
One life, long enough that the contradictions have to stay in.
It meets history, memoir, and the archival patience of reading other people’s mail.
Biographers practice proportion: which year gets a chapter, which gets a paragraph.
On an Interest Map, the line we most often letter beside biography reads “contradictions that stay in.” It tends to meet history, memoir, and archives.
Work that shares the table
A book that keeps it company
The Library Book, Susan Orlean. Read it beside biography: A library as a public room full of private obsessions.