Live from NYPL - Robert Caro, Robert Gottlieb, Lizzie Gottlieb & Jordan Pavlin: Turn Every Page
Live from NYPL
Robert Caro, Robert Gottlieb, Lizzie Gottlieb & Jordan Pavlin: Turn Every Page
Monday, December 12, 2022
It felt almost historic to be at the New York Public Library to hear Robert Caro talk about his writing career and particularly his relationship with his editor of 50 years Robert Gottlieb. Gottlieb was editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf, and The New Yorker, and edited hundreds of novels and non-fiction books over his career. Caro is the author of The Power Broker, The Years of Lyndon Johnson (four huge volumes thus far) and Working, all edited by Gottlieb.
Much of Caro’s work on his Robert Moses biography, “The Power Broker” took place right here at the library about 50 years ago. The relationship between Caro and Gottlieb is the subject of a documentary, “Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb”, directed and produced by Gottlieb's filmmaker daughter Lizzie Gottlieb.
My notes from the evening …
The relationship between Caro and Gottlieb
Caro: Gottlieb is an editor who cares as much about my work as I do.
Gottlieb: an editor must remember that it’s the writer’s book, and that the editor's job is simply to make suggestions to improve the work.
His relationship with Caro: He does the work, I do the cleanup, and then we fight.
Fights over punctuation
Gottlieb: We have very different feelings about the use of the semicolon. The semicolon is worth fighting a Civil War about.
Caro: We sometimes spent an entire day arguing over a semicolon.
When should a semicolon be used?
Gottlieb: Use it only when appropriate.
Caro: That’s true, we agree on that. The semicolon is part of the rhythm of my writing.
Gottlieb also edited Toni Morrison‘s work and said that their only disagreements were over commas.
Knowing your subject When writing one of his volumes about Lyndon Johnson, Caro felt as if he didn’t know Johnson well enough and decided that he and his wife Ina should move to the isolated Hill Country of Texas so that he could better understand Johnson. Ina, who Caro credits with invaluable contributions to his work through her research, said “why don’t you do a biography of Napoleon.”
Gottlieb’s ingenuity Gottlieb said that he had edited Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, which was originally to be titled “Catch 18”. However, Leon Uris had just published Mila 18, so Gottlieb, concerned about the possibility of confusion, convinced Heller that “Catch 22” was a better title.
On preparation to become an editor, Gottlieb said that what was required was “reading, reading, and more reading. That’s what I do. I was probably reading in the womb, although there’s no way of checking.“
The Film In response to a question, Lizzy Gottlieb said that her northstar for the film was her father’s mantra, “Get it done, do it now, check it, check it, check it again”, and Caro’s mantra, “Turn every page”.
Gottlieb originally told his daughter that he was not interested in a film about his relationship with Caro. However, he said, “I’ve never said no to my daughter, so we did it”.
Caro also originally rejected the notion but he decided that the film would be an opportunity to talk about the human cost of power, about the people who were displaced from their homes, and otherwise hurt by the roads and highways built by Robert Moses.
The final volume of the Johnson biography During the moderated discussion, Caro said nothing about the timing for completion of the long awaited final volume of his Johnson biography, and none of the audience questions touched on the subject.
I had approached the stage when the discussion was completed to say thank you to Caro and Gottlieb, and thought that I might ask about the timing for the final volume. But, honestly, I froze and did not ask the question. Finnegan would’ve asked.
