Read Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject

Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject

Meryle Secrest

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Description:The first rule of biography, wrote Justin Kaplan: "Shoot the widow."Meryle Secrest, acclaimed biographer writes about her comic triumphs and misadventures as a biographer in search of her nine celebrated subjects, about how the hunt for a life is like working one's way through a maze, full of false starts, dead ends, and occasional clear passages leading to the next part of the puzzle.She writes about her first book, a life of Romaine Brooks, and how she was led to Nice and given invaluable letters by her subject's heir that were slid across the table, one at a time; how she was led to the villa of Brooks' lover, poet-playwright-aviator Gabriele d'Annunzio, a fantastic mausoleum left untouched since the moment of his death seventy years before; to a small English village, where she uncovered a lost Romaine Brooks painting; and finally to Paris, where Romaine's lover, Natalie Barney, had fifty years before entertained Cocteau, Gide, Proust, Colette, and others.Secrest describes how her next book, a life of Berenson, prompted a fellow biographer to comment that he wouldn't touch the subject with a ten-foot pole.For her life of British art historian Kenneth Clark, Secrest was given permission to write the book by her subject, who surreptitiously financed it in the hopes of controlling its contents; we see how Clark's plan was foiled by a jealous mistress and a stash of love letters that helped Secrest navigate Clark's obstacle course.Among the other biographical (mis)adventures, Secrest reveals how she tracked Salvador Dali to a hospital room, found him recovering from serious burns sustained in a mysterious fire, and learned that he was knee-deep in a scandal involving fake drawings and prints and surrounded by dangerous characters out of Murder, Inc., and how she went in search of a subject's grave (Frank Lloyd Wright's) only to find that his body had been dug up to satisfy the whim of his last wife.A fascinating account of a life spent in sometimes arduous, sometimes comical, always exciting pursuit of the truth about other lives.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject. To get started finding Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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ISBN: 0307497860

Description: The first rule of biography, wrote Justin Kaplan: "Shoot the widow."Meryle Secrest, acclaimed biographer writes about her comic triumphs and misadventures as a biographer in search of her nine celebrated subjects, about how the hunt for a life is like working one's way through a maze, full of false starts, dead ends, and occasional clear passages leading to the next part of the puzzle.She writes about her first book, a life of Romaine Brooks, and how she was led to Nice and given invaluable letters by her subject's heir that were slid across the table, one at a time; how she was led to the villa of Brooks' lover, poet-playwright-aviator Gabriele d'Annunzio, a fantastic mausoleum left untouched since the moment of his death seventy years before; to a small English village, where she uncovered a lost Romaine Brooks painting; and finally to Paris, where Romaine's lover, Natalie Barney, had fifty years before entertained Cocteau, Gide, Proust, Colette, and others.Secrest describes how her next book, a life of Berenson, prompted a fellow biographer to comment that he wouldn't touch the subject with a ten-foot pole.For her life of British art historian Kenneth Clark, Secrest was given permission to write the book by her subject, who surreptitiously financed it in the hopes of controlling its contents; we see how Clark's plan was foiled by a jealous mistress and a stash of love letters that helped Secrest navigate Clark's obstacle course.Among the other biographical (mis)adventures, Secrest reveals how she tracked Salvador Dali to a hospital room, found him recovering from serious burns sustained in a mysterious fire, and learned that he was knee-deep in a scandal involving fake drawings and prints and surrounded by dangerous characters out of Murder, Inc., and how she went in search of a subject's grave (Frank Lloyd Wright's) only to find that his body had been dug up to satisfy the whim of his last wife.A fascinating account of a life spent in sometimes arduous, sometimes comical, always exciting pursuit of the truth about other lives.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject. To get started finding Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject

Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject

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