their process took shape

Posted: July 23rd, 2023 | Tags: | Comments Off on their process took shape
Kai Bird, left, and Martin J. Sherwin in 2006, showing off a copy of their long-in-the-making book “American Prometheus.”Credit…Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press, courtesy of The New York Times

i ordered american prometheus from interlibrary loan but i was smoking crack because it’s SO long and i’d never make it by the deadline because i’m the slowest reader alive. also incredible title. i later bought a used copy (as yet unopened) (not the book’s fault) but i loved this article about the partnership between writers martin sherwin and kai bird. sounds like my dream:

Their process took shape: Bird would pore over the research, synthesize it, and produce a draft which he’d send to Sherwin, who would recognize what was missing, edit and rewrite, and return the copy to Bird. Soon Sherwin was drafting as well. “We wrote furiously for four years,” Bird said.

Sherwin always knew that the hearing that stripped Oppenheimer of his clearance would be the “epicenter” of the biography, Bird said. They argued about what the evidence might suggest, but never about style, process, or the shape of the book itself. “It became,” Susan Sherwin said, “almost a magical thing.”

“Behind ‘Oppenheimer,’ a Prizewinning Biography 25 Years in the Making” by Andy Kifer

Comments are closed.