A wide-ranging discussion of why Ethel Rosenberg matters, what is new in her story, and why American writers continue to be obsessed with her life.

I draw on my experience of writing biographies of William Faulkner, Michael Foot, and Amy Lowell, to explain why biographies have to be about the whole person, notwithstanding the charge of literary prurience.

My view of what has happened to Bailey’s biography of Roth, how reviewers and readers have responded, and why what I’ve seen so far is inadequate.

What goes into a dual biography, and what a sociologist can bring to the study of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.

A wide-ranging interview about how biography gets done, both authorized and unauthorized, with Nadel’s subjects, Leonard Cohen & Philip Roth, and more.

What happens during and after interviews, with examples drawn from my biographies of Lillian Hellman, Rebecca West, Susan Sontag, Jill Craigie, and Michael Foot.

What happens during and after interviews with subjects ranging from Walter Matthau to Ellen Burstyn to Richard Wilbur.

Mike Peros describes how he became a biographer, how he researched his biographies of José Ferrer and Dan Duryea, and much more.

Through the examples of Marilyn Monroe, Amy Lowell, William Faulkner, and Sylvia Plath, I explain why so many biographies of the same subject are published.