Fellowships to working biographers. Each of these fellowships is now worth 72,000, so not chump change. To date, some 20 biographies have been published including shirley jackson, one of the Prestigious National book critic award for biography. I also read the news about our brandnew wholly unique Masters Program in biography and memoir. It is just hard this autumn with at least 17 students enrolled which is phenomenal. And brenda is actually both a former director of the leon leavy center and she now teaches one of the core courses in the new Masters Program. Just a reminder what our next program is next wednesday september 25 at 6 30 p. M. With david nassau giving the annual lecture on biography. Tonight, im very delighted to have with us ben moser in conversation with brenda wineapple. As i said, branded as a former director of the leon leavy center and shes the author most recently of the mp chairs, the trial of Andrew Johnson and the dream of a just nation. A very widely reviewed and timely book for our time. Been moses last book was why this world, biography of which was a finalist for the National Critics circle award. His new book, sontag was just published two days ago and its already an amazon bestseller and has garnered long and really quite interesting reviews in the New York Times, the new yorker and elsewhere. For instance, in todays New York Times described it quote, as as a book as handsom, provocative and troubled as its subject. Clearly this is a biography not to be ignored. Brenda will interrogate ben now for about 40 minutes. [laughing] i always say that. Good luck. Its interrogation of the author. And then they will take some questions at the end. And afterwards, both ben and brenda will be sunk their respective books, so buy books on call of new york city. So rend and ben, please tell us about susan sontag. [applause] first of all, thank you. Wonderful to to be here with you in your wonderful new book. Its, its a book for our times. Its going to be i think already that the definitive word on susan sontag. You did an enormous amount of work for this book, and one of the things thats stunning about it is, the material that you had to go through, the archives and the sheer i dont even know how many interviews there were. And i think its been said and i think you have told me this, i have known ben, i should just confess, for a while so its not really an interrogation. Im a great admirer of your books and i consider myself an honored friend, so its so nice to be here interrogating you as a result of that. I understand that youre the socalled authorized biographer. I guess there been an authorized books, and i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what that means for an audience who may not know what that is. What are the advantages and maybe even the disadvantages of authorization, and then well get to the susan sontag but just to start with fasten interesting question because its very hard to explain, even though it doesnt seem like like a hard concept. I was the authorized biographer but this book is not the authorized lockerbie. When you say the authorized biography it sounds like it got a seal of approval from somebody. Or that it had to be signed off on. I dont think i wouldve done if i wouldve had that. I think for me as a writer i have to be independent to comment own conclusions, and knowing that sontag was this incredible political person was a faceting person and you attracted all sorts of protections and thoughts and opinions about her, often correct and even more often incorrect, i wouldnt have stepped into that. What happened was i was in rio doing my, what i thought would buy last event ever and i thought i am finally off the hook and i can go to the beach or something. I dont really go to the beach that much just be honest. Just relax. I got an email saying guess what, we have appointed you. Not appointed some people including her agent and her son and her publisher had sort of read a bunch of books and thought that i might come why this role was something that showed that i could take on sontag. But then i had an agreement that meant that the estate could look at the book and comment on the book, and if there were any legal issues they could talk about that, but they can make suggestions, and those were helpful but it wasnt, i couldnt have written with them look of my shoulders of course not but did that give you access to the enormous numbers of people or maybe it inhibited some of those people. It did. I would say it definitely gave access to some. Following her death there was sort of a rift between her son david and her partner anna leibowitz. And the people in the world split into these camps. For all sorts of reasons that i go into in the book. That didnt go well, postmortem. So annie and her friends didnt like it because they thought that i was davids little errand boy or something. Whatever access i think it gave me, it also took it away. Annie did eventually speak to me but i did get access, exciting thing, i had access to archives that were restricted, and thats kind of thats exciting because you made tremendous use of her journals in this book and it really, you have a very strong voice and want to talk about that. And it mean that all completely positive sense but, of course, sontag herself as a strong voice. One of the motifs of the book is that theres a difference between sontags personal voice her inner voice, interior voice in the voice she cultivated for the public, even though that changed over time. I was wondering, incoming to put the book together, when did you begin to think about the motifs that you used to understand sontags life . In other words, let me just quote you. Theres one quote thats really very interesting i think, and might have a way to understand that. You said, a minds process gives narrative to the writers life. And so one of the things thats wonderful about bens book, the mines progress gives narrative to the writers life. So that youre looking for the way, she thinks in that sense but you have drive away to develop that for the reader and make that explicit. When did you begin to feel that you had an understanding of sontag in the terms that you present her to us . I think he comes back to the question of how political she was and how many opinions were affixed to her. From the time she should very , already in her 20s was a first time she was featured as as a character and a novel. She was somebody that was quite fictional seeming to people. They say things about her that are not true, objectively obvious and not to if you know the facts. One of the things that happens with her is that peoples opinions are often very negative about her work. So just to give an example, she wrote four novels and a lot of stories that are very easy for people, very common for people to say she wrote these great essays and she is so smart, why did she write all these horrible novels . Theres two ways, first of all, i dont agree. I like some of the novels and i think some of the essays fall short. As a biographer since were in a biographical setting. I am not the person judging that in a way like a book critic looking at this as one book kind of saying three stars or four stores the whats interesting about sontag issues in constant evolution. Not all of her books are equally fabulous, but they lead to something. Its that evolution of the mind. Thats the sort of biography. If you dont have that you dont really need the biography. Its very hard for people sometimes to understand that people do change over time we understand it in life, i think, or hope, but understanding it in the book. Often we get a kind of set piece of a person and then we just kind of exemplify that over time. You cant do that with sontag because she really is evolving. But there are certain kind of, what, light motifs that a very interesting. Maybe we should go back for people who dont know much about her life. I want to get to those motifs, but one of the things, im going to talk more about with you about her life and then going to talk about the motifs pictures for people who dont know, she is actually from the west, which many people dont know, and that she lived in so many different places. She lived in california, arizona. Do you want to talk about that although that . Give us the background. Thats really important, not only that shes from the west but she had a her father died in china of all places when he was just 33. Her mother was an alcoholic who was from new jersey, from montclair, verona, who up there. And then moved very young to los angeles at a time to los angeles was still a a little city right before the first world war. And her mother kind of grew up as hollywood grew up in the former jewish neighborhood right east of downtown. That was ruined by all sorts of typical urban disasters. Her mother and her grandmother who was from eastern poland came to los angeles because they loved the movies. The mother uses her mother at age 33, then the father dies, then the mother is unhappy woman whos very beautiful and very dedicated to appearances and she goes, shes always kind of looking for a place to be happier. So they moved to florida for a while. They moved back to new york, they moved to new jersey, they moved to arizona. They moved to los angeles,and finally they moved to hawaii. Their parents, not susan herself. So this is really an isolating experience for children. If you know people in the army, not only does she not have a father, she doesnt really have a mother and she doesnt really have any friends because shes to being moved around every couple years so what she does have, and thissounds like a cliffhanger, what she has our books. She has the world that is in her mind and her imagination and that becomes extremely important and it sustains herself throughout her life. Its a tough life. Absolutely, and when one thinks of susan sontag, one doesnt think necessarily even though she wrote eloquently about illness, somebody whosuffered terribly and especially when she had breast cancer, the kinds of chemotherapy that was available and the kinds of surgery, its just really grueling. Even when she had an abortion and she was very young which was illegaland the only anesthesia you had was to turn up the radio loud so people wouldnt hear you scream. People didnt see behind this iconic figure. Pain, terrible terrible pain. And that becomes an interesting phenomenon that there is an iconic figure but theres a human being that is living and suffering behind that very often. And in point of fact, shes evolving. Shes changing. One of the interesting things and i think its made much of and i think its a real contribution is the fact that when she got married very young , and she barely knew the man she married. They got engaged aftera week. And he was her teacher, she was a student but beyond that, this is really astonishing to read in 2019 that if he was assigned reviews or things to do, she read the books and wrote the reviews. But she was excitedabout that, shes like great. He wasnt like some big eminence with all these grad students. Theres a time management problem but beyond the reviews that as i started to say you make very clear that she was the writer of the book that he became known for which is freud, the mind and the moral and that in private i think she was very clear about what she had done. But it wasnt publicly known i dont think at all, right . One of the fascinating things about this book is that sontag seems like that contemporary figure even though shes 50 years old but shes looks like shes from fifth avenue or something. Shes actually a lot of the categories have changed so much that its hard to think back to the times. She does write this book and Everybody Knows shewrites the book. I saw her sister a couple days ago and she was quoted in the times and they said of course you wrote it, we all knew that but it was funny when there was a piece in the guardian, they got a copy of it and breaks this big news to everyone that she had written freud the mind of a moralist and all the older women i interviewed during this process all emailed me and there like whats everybody so surprised about . Thats happened to everybody. Everybodys forgotten what it was like. We all wrote our husbands books back in 1948. One thinks of the present one but one thinks of susan sontag in the 20th century. She was born in 1933 when hitler came to power. Its not lately. But she did it and it was so funny to see all the outrage among younger women compared to the eye rolling, blasc big deal among older women because a lot of the academic women were very rare in her generation. There were very few role models and i think were, since were in a biographical setting i will mention karens excellent writing which says girls of her, i guess shes younger than sontag. Not like you much. But she said growing up, if youre an intellectual girl who wanted to write or you wanted to be an artist, there was only one figure you looked to and that was madame curie whose biography by her daughter was the only member of the familynot to win a nobel prize. Her mother even got to. Her husband, brother, mom and dad and everybody but she did write this excellent biography and that was the only thing girls had to look to. So now youre so used to a womanwriter, woman journalist. The first journalist ever in brazil, that was in the 40s. It makes those things, time to do change. There are things, i dont think you mentioned this and i dont remember, was the title her title or do you think it was his . I dont know but its very her. Thats why i wanted to ask that. The mind of a moralist and the reason i thought that was so interesting is because there is this kind of tension i feel and i think you speak of between sontag as moralist and sontag as almost as petition. She talks about early on and gets interpretation about the erotic of art and that we understand art as something thats purely aesthetic. And yet when we think ofher later work , we think that she especially when she revisits photography, she becomes herself so clearly a moralist and i think that was always there in a way. I think it was always there. Its interesting thatwould be the title whether its hers or his. The worst you could say is they collaborated on it but she was always interested in sort of the moral response of the artist to, and you make much of this representation which becomes interesting. Which is very problematic and its fun to talk about if anyone will indulge me, ican go on about that for a long time. But its funny because her moralism, she says im a puritan twice over. So you think oh god, we know what thats like. Its not, the easiest heritage always because youre always sort of an ideal moral perfectionist holds up to you. And in a lot of different ways and i think in america particularly if you come from the west this is whats important. I write about californias literature. Gertrude stein came from the west and has thissort of similarity but go ahead. Its similar because the responsibility to live up to this country that youve been given becomes very isolating. You can findthat already in massachusetts in the 17th century. God has given you this place which is the richest country in the world and youre a little slug. Not quite measuring up. Sontag felt that keenly and then she finds in socrates and find in the greek moralist to come back to moralism and she really does feel very strongly that morality and aesthetics are the same thing. This is something that she resists in a certain way because shes an intellectual. But shes trying to kind of be more, and against interpretation shestrying to get away. Not change so much, shes basically trying to get away from freud on the one hand and marks on the other hand. They were quite oppressive to people in those generations because they were so dominant and so overarching and so complicated and they did offer you the key to culture. If you could master freud for example or marks, you could understand how the world works. How personality and psychology and politics and aesthetics work then already by her generation those are, the cracks are starting to show and so she chooses something that was not natural for her at all which was the essential approach to art which was just kind of rocking out and enjoying music, enjoying painting and film and sex and people. Its not a natural thing for her and its not really her natural mode and i think when she gets back into the moralism, shes on more solid ground. I dont know what you mean it wasnt natural, pumping very exciting about this she found. That she was thrilled by it in a way. I want to put words in your mouth and you know so much more but it seems that over time, she became less comfortable with that. These things are time bound, so against interpretation as such a product not just of her and her age but the age shes living in and by the time say for example shes going to bosnia or even before that, even more problematic before that is her trip that you talk about very well it seems to be to vietnam that she writestrip to hanoi , that she herself ab is realizing that she needs to rethink some of this pleasure or that she wants to sort of reintroduce a point of view. When you look at this its important again to realize how much has changed but also how much did change against interpretation to trip to finally what changed was how many years was that . Five years, 63 to 68. But what happens and something i found touching that i didnt realize and maybe its wrong, you can correct me if im wrong somebody said to me and it made sense at the literature of postwar america until the 50s, a lot of it is about the personal struggle. Even if its your living in a country thats won the war, is the richest and most powerful country in the world and yet its also the time of the black civil rights movement. Its the time of resurgent feminism and all this new, exciting american freudian is and that seems to be exerting people to live more free lives and so you have books like jackkerouac on the road. Lets head out into the desert. Norman o brown, absolutely. Even Allen Ginsberg would be part of that. And but its kind of about you. Its not really about society area has society in it but its about exploring your self. And then you have the great triumph of the new generation symbolized by john f. Kennedy. 1960. So not to, spoiler alert you anything away but he is killed in 1963. Im sorry, i know. Its in the book. I should say that. But the death of kennedy is close to me also because my mother almost saw it happen. Shewas from dallas and she saw him right before it happened in downtown dallas. I know exactly the street and the time and its a specific time and you can trace it to the minute where america kind of snapped and what happens almost immediately after that or indeed immediately after that, Lyndon Johnson becomes president and continues and escalates the war in vietnam which is something that my father always says is the biggest difference between my generation and his is that when he was in college and when he was a young man all he thought about was getting drafted and going to vietnam. And theres a darkness that settles over america but i dont think weve ever gotten rid of that