New Books in Biography

Aline B. Louchheim (1914-1972) was an art critic on assignment for the New York Times in 1953 when she first met the Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen. She would become his wife and the driving force behind his rise to critical prominence. When Eero Met His Match: Aline Louchheim Saarinen and the Making of an Architect (Princeton UP, 2022) draws on the couple's personal correspondence to reconstruct the early days of their thrilling courtship and traces Louchheim's gradual takeover of Saarinen's public narrative in the 1950s, the decade when his career soared to unprecedented heights.Drawing on her own experiences as an architecture journalist on the receiving end of press pitches and then as a secret publicist for high-end architects, Eva Hagberg paints an unforgettable portrait of Louchheim while revealing the inner workings of a media world that has always relied on secrecy, friendship, and the exchange of favors. She describes how Louchheim codified the practices of architectural publicity that have become widely adopted today, and shows how, without Louchheim as his wife and publicist, Saarinen's work would not have been nearly as well known.Providing a new understanding of postwar architectural history in the United States, When Eero Met His Match is both a poignant love story and a superb biographical study that challenges us to reconsider the relationship between fame and media representation, and the ways the narratives of others can become our own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

I grew up with Alexandra David-Neel’s books on my mum’s bookshelf. She was part of the myth making process that led to my own fascination with Tibet, as something real, and as fantasy, a description that is often used to define Neel’s relationship and presentation of Tibet. She was either a key that helped open the door into the world of Tibet with its Lamas, Vajrayana Buddhism, and enormous mountains and planes, or another in the long line of westerners who turned Tibet into a romantic, western fantasy.In this episode, I talk to Diane Harke, author of Incognito: The Astounding Life of Alexandra David-Neel (Sumeru Press, 2016). We look back at David-Neel, her life, and Tibet. She was also a life-long anarchist, feminist, explorer, and prolific author. We discuss her encounters with the 13th Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama and her legacy in creating an image of Tibet and Buddhism that enticed the likes of Alan Watts and Gary Snyder to venture Eastwards.Matthew O'Connell is a life coach and the host of the The Imperfect Buddha podcast. You can find The Imperfect Buddha on Facebook and Twitter (@imperfectbuddha). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Helmi's Shadow: A Journey of Survival from Russia to East Asia to the American West (U Nevada Press, 2021) tells the sweeping true story of two Russian Jewish refugees, a mother (Rachel Koskin) and her daughter (Helmi). With determination and courage, they survived decades of hardship in the hidden corners of war-torn Asia and then journeyed across the Pacific at the end of the Second World War to become United States citizens after seeking safe harbor in the unlikely western desert town of Reno, Nevada. This compelling narrative is also a memoir, told lovingly by Helmi's son, David, of growing up under the wings of these strong women in an unusual American family.Rachel Koskin was a middle-class Russian Jew born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1896. Ten years later, her family fled from the murderous pogroms against Jews in the Russian Empire eastward to Harbin, a Russian-controlled city within China's borders on the harsh plain of Manchuria. Full of lively detail and the struggles of being stateless in a time of war, the narrative follows Rachel through her life in Harbin, which became a center of Russian culture in the Far East; the birth of her daughter, Helmi, in Kobe, Japan; their life together in the slums of Shanghai and back in Japan during World War II, where they endured many more hardships; and their subsequent immigration to the United States.This remarkable account uncovers a history of refugees living in war-torn China and Japan, a history that to this day remains largely unknown. It is also a story of survival during a long period of upheaval and war--from the Russian Revolution to the Holocaust--and an intimate portrait of an American immigrant family. David reveals both the joys and tragedies he experienced growing up in a multicultural household in post-Second World War America with a Jewish mother, a live-in Russian grandmother, and a devout Irish Catholic American father.As David develops a clearer awareness of the mysterious past lives of his mother and grandmother--and the impact of these events on his own understanding of the long-term effects of fear, trauma, and loss--he shows us that, even in times of peace and security, we are all shadows of our past, marked by our experiences, whether we choose to reveal them to others or not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Wolfgang Marx's I Don't Belong Anywhere: Gyorgy Ligeti At 100 (Brepols Publishers, 2022) commemorates the centenary of Gyorgy Ligeti's birth. The volume consists of twelve contributions that consists of new investigations of many aspects of Legeti's career. 2023 marks the centenary of Ligeti's birth, an appropriate moment to take stock of the relevance this composer has in the contemporary world, to assess where he "belongs" today and how our views of his uvre and our understanding of his position in musical and cultural history have evolved. What do Ligeti and his music have to say to us in our post-postmodernist age? Why do his works still fascinate us so much? This book offers new readings of core compositions such as "Aventures", "Lontano", "Le Grand Macabre", the "Holderlin Fantasies" and "Galamb borong". It also reassesses the context and reception of Ligeti's works, including the influence of Romanian music (not least in his childhood), musical life in Hungary between 1945 and 1956, the ways in which his thinking was influenced by his experience of different soundscapes, yet also the surprisingly widespread use of his music in film and TV (beyond the usual suspect). Finally it presents new sources discovered or made available only recently: letters exchanged between Ligeti and Aliute Mecys in 1972, the correspondence between the composer and his publisher Schott, and an extended BBC interview from 1997. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

By the early 1950s, Jane Russell (1921–2011) should have been forgotten. Her career was launched on what is arguably the most notorious advertising campaign in cinema history, which invited filmgoers to see Howard Hughes's The Outlaw (1943) and to "tussle with Russell." Throughout the 1940s, she was nicknamed the "motionless picture actress" and had only three films in theaters. With such a slow, inauspicious start, most aspiring actresses would have given up or faded away. Instead, Russell carved out a place for herself in Hollywood and became a memorable and enduring star.Christina Rice offers the first biography of the actress and activist perhaps most well-known for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Despite the fact that her movie career was stalled for nearly a decade, Russell's filmography is respectable. She worked with some of Hollywood's most talented directors―including Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Josef von Sternberg―and held her own alongside costars such as Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope. She also learned how to fight back against Howard Hughes, her boss for more than thirty-five years, and his marketing campaigns that exploited her physical appearance.Beyond the screen, Rice reveals Russell as a complex and confident woman. She explores the star's years as a spokeswoman for Playtex as well as her deep faith and work as a Christian vocalist. Rice also discusses Russell's leadership and patronage of the WAIF foundation, which for many years served as the fundraising arm of the International Social Service (ISS) agency. WAIF raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, successfully lobbied Congress to change laws, and resulted in the adoption of tens of thousands of orphaned children. For Russell, the work she did to help unite families overshadowed any of her onscreen achievements.On the surface, Jane Russell seemed to live a charmed life, but Rice illuminates her darker moments and her personal struggles, including her empowered reactions to the controversies surrounding her films and her feelings about being portrayed as a sex symbol. Mean...Moody...Magnificent!: Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend (UP of Kentucky, 2021) offers a fresh perspective on a star whose legacy endures not simply because she forged a notable film career, but also because she effectively used her celebrity to benefit others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

The socialist activist E. T. Kingsley occupies an odd place in the history of labor and the left. Often mentioned due to his prolific life of speaking, writing, traveling and organizing, he has still generally remained wrapped in obscurity, leaving little in the way of a paper trail for us to understand who he actually is. Fortunately, Benjamin Isitt and Ravi Malhotra have been working to correct this. Following up their coauthored biography of him, they have now put out an anthology of writings and speeches of Kingsley from the late 19th and early 20th century: Class Warrior: The Selected Works of E. T. Kingsley (Athabasca UP, 2022).While the entries tend to be short, their polemical nature and reflection on current events open up a window to the labor struggles of the Pacific Northwest a century ago, allowing us to see a new angle on, and perhaps develop a new appreciation of our history.Ravi Malhotra is a professor in the faculty of law at the University of Ottawa.Benjamin Isitt is a historian, author, and legal scholar in British Columbia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Young Edith and her siblings had access to the best educators in the world, but the girls were not taught how to handle the family money; that responsibility was reserved for their younger brother. A parsimonious upbringing did little to prepare Edith for life after marriage to Harold McCormick, son of the Reaper King Cyrus McCormick. The rich young couple spent lavishly. They purchased treasures like the jewels of Catherine the Great, entertained in grand style in a Chicago mansion, and contributed to the city’s cultural uplift, founding the Chicago Grand Opera. They supported free health care for the poor, founding and supporting the John R. McCormick Memorial Institute for Infectious Diseases. Later, Edith donated land for what would become Brookfield Zoo.Though she lived a seemingly enviable life, Edith’s disposition was ill-suited for the mores of the time. Societal and personal issues—not least of which were the deaths of two of her five children—caused Edith to experience phobias and panic attacks. Dissatisfied with rest cures, she ignored her father’s expectations, moved her family to Zurich, and embarked on a journey of education and self-examination. Edith pursued analysis with then-unknown Carl Jung. Her generosity of spirit led Edith to become Jung’s leading patron. She also supported up-and-coming musicians, artists, and writers, including James Joyce as he wrote Ulysses.While Edith became a Jungian analyst, her husband, Harold, pursued an affair with an opera star. After returning to Chicago and divorcing Harold, Edith continued to deplete her fortune. She hoped to create something of lasting value, such as a utopian community and affordable homes for the middle class. Edith’s goals caused further difficulties in her relationship with her father and are why he and her brother cut her off from the family funds even after the 1929 stock market crash ruined her. Edith’s death from breast cancer three years later was mourned by thousands of Chicagoans.In Edith: The Rogue Rockefeller McCormick (Southern Illinois UP, 2020), Andrea Friederici Ross presents the full arc of this amazing woman’s life and expertly helps readers understand Edith’s generosity, intelligence, and fierce determination to change the world.Jeannette Cockroft is an associate professor of history and political science at Schreiner University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth (Granta Books, 2022) travels with Roth from his childhood in the town of Brody on the eastern edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to an unsettled life spent roaming Europe between the wars, including spells in Vienna, Paris and Berlin. His decline mirrored the collapse of civilized Europe: in his last peripatetic decade, he opposed Nazism in exile from Germany, his wife succumbed to schizophrenia and he died an alcoholic on the eve of WWII.Exploring the role of Roth's absent father in his imaginings, his attitude to his Jewishness and his restless search for home, Keiron Pim's gripping account of Roth's chaotic life speaks powerfully to us in our era of uncertainty, refugee crises and rising ethno-nationalism. Published as Roth's works rapidly gain new readers and recognition, Endless Flight delivers a visceral yet sensitive portrait of his quest for belonging, and a riveting understanding of the brilliance and beauty of his work.Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed has a Ph.D. in Slavic languages and literatures (Indiana University, 2022).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

This is the fantastical, yet real, story of the merchants of Bethlehem, the young men who traveled to every corner of the globe in the nineteenth century. These men set off on the backs of donkeys with suitcases full of crosses and rosaries, to return via steamship with suitcases stuffed with French francs, Philippine pesos, or Salvadoran colones. They returned with news of mysterious lands and strange inventions—clocks, trains, and other devices that both befuddled and bewitched the Bethlehemites. With newfound wealth, these merchants built shimmering pink mansions that transformed Bethlehem from a rural village into Palestine's wealthiest and most cosmopolitan town. At the center of these extraordinary occurrences lived Jubrail Dabdoub.The Lives and Deaths of Jubrail Dabdoub: Or, How the Bethlehemites Discovered Amerka" (Stanford UP, 2023) tells the story of Jubrail's encounters, offering a version of Palestinian history rarely acknowledged. From his childhood in rural Bethlehem to later voyages across Europe, East Asia, and the Americas, Jubrail's story culminates in a recorded miracle: in 1909, he was brought back from the dead. To tell such a tale is to delve into the realms of the fantastic and improbable. Through the story of Jubrail's life, Jacob Norris explores the porous lines between history and fiction, the normal and the paranormal, the everyday and the extraordinary.Drawing on aspects of magical realism combined with elements of Palestinian folklore, Norris recovers the atmosphere of late nineteenth-century Bethlehem: a mood of excitement, disorientation, and wonder as the town was thrust into a new era. As the book offers an original approach to historical writing, it captures a fantastic story of global encounter and exchange.Roberto Mazza is currently a Visiting Lecturer at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com. Twitter and IG: @robbyref Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

In Play Like a Man: My Life in Poster Children (University of Illinois Press, 2023), Poster Children bassist Rose Marshack details her life in the 80s and 90s as part of a heavily touring Indie Rock band. Using her Tour Reports from the 1990s, Marshack relates what life was like during the indie rock breakthrough while the advent of new digital technologies transformed the recording and marketing of music. Touring in a van, meeting your idols, juggling a programming job with music, keeping control and credibility, the perils of an independent record label (and the greater perils of a major)--Marshack chronicles the band's day-to-day life and punctuates her account with excerpts from her tour reports and hard-learned lessons on how to rock, program, and teach while female. She also details the ways Poster Children applied punk's DIY ethos to digital tech as a way to connect with fans via then-new media like pkids listservs, internet radio, and enhanced CDs. An inside look at a scene and a career, Play Like a Man is the evocative and humorous tale of one woman's life in the trenches and online.Rebekah Buchanan is a Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography