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Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing

Robert A. Caro

4.43 · Rating details · 4,147 ratings · 661 reviews

Robert A. Caro, 'one of the great reporters of our time and probably the greatest biographer’ (Sunday Times), is one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation, whose biographies are widely considered to be masterpieces.

In Working he offers a captivating account of his life as a writer, describing the sometimes staggering lengths to which he has gone in order to

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Kindle Edition, 221 pages

Published April 25th 2019 by Vintage Digital (first published April 9th 2019)

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Apr 12, 2019 Darwin8u rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: writing, american, 2019, nonfiction, memoir-autobiography-diary

"Turn every page. Never assume anyhting. Turn every goddamned page"
- Alan Hathaway, quoted by Robert Caro, Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing

description

It is weird to give a Caro book only four stars. I've read nearly everyhing (except the big Whale: The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York) he's writing and it seems nearly perfect. He is one of my favorite writers of nonfiction ever. His fanatacism to his craft is incredible. His old-school approach to research and writing is fant ...more

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May 24, 2019 Jean rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, memoir, audio-book

Robert Caro is one of my favorite biographers. In this book Caro discusses his life but mostly provides information about how he and his wife do research about a topic. The number one take away I got from this book is do not hurry, take your time and do it right. He tells of hours in the archives, reading other people’s work, newspaper articles, diaries and letters. He also tells of traveling around doing interviews with people. He spent years doing the research, gathering material, organizing i ...more

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Apr 23, 2019 Mehrsa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I think Caro is the greatest living writer out there (may he live forever--or until he finishes the last Johnson book). A lot of material in this book is old stuff--include in his other books or periodicals, but it's still wonderful to have it compiled in one place. My favorite essay in this collection was the one about importance of place where he talks about how living in the Hill Country and experiencing the barrenness of the land helped him understand Johnson's superhuman vote counting abili ...more

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Apr 23, 2019 Kurt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, memoir, politics, audio

Lately, a daily ritual for me is to offer a simple, silent supplication or prayer for two people of advanced age – two people I have never met, and whom I am sure I never will meet. I pray that they will live several more years in good health with continued mental acuity.

Robert Caro is one of these people. At age 83 he is still a few years from finishing the fifth and final book in his series The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Eight to twelve years elapsed between the publication of each of the first Lately, a daily ritual for me is to offer a simple, silent supplication or prayer for two people of advanced age – two people I have never met, and whom I am sure I never will meet. I pray that they will live several more years in good health with continued mental acuity.

Robert Caro is one of these people. At age 83 he is still a few years from finishing the fifth and final book in his series The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Eight to twelve years elapsed between the publication of each of the first four books in the series due to Caro's insistence on time-consuming, meticulous research and constant re-organizing and re-writing of the lengthy volumes. But the results are all masterpieces. I am currently more than halfway through Master of the Senate, the Pulitzer-prize-winning third book in the series.

Caro's books are so much more than mere biographies. They tell the story of power in America – how power is won, how it has been wielded, how it has been maintained and lost, and how it has affected, for both good and for ill, those who have it and those who do not.

In this relatively short memoir Robert Caro talks about his work. He gives several insightful and interesting anecdotes. He also describes the details of how he painstakingly obtains the information for his books, through countless interviews and (literally) millions of pages of reading, constantly reorganizing, deleting from, adding to, and rewriting his manuscripts until, years later, he achieves the final product – a published book that he is still and forever wanting to enhance and improve.

I believe that if I had read the printed version of this book rather than having listened to the audio book, I would not have enjoyed it nearly as much. The audio book is read by the author himself, in his slow, purposeful, New York accent. I loved how he pronounced “raw” and “law” as “rawr” and “lawr”. His wife Ina, whom he refers to frequently – always with obvious heartfelt love, respect, and devotion – he pronounces “Iner”.

I cannot recommend Robert Caro’s books more highly. They are not light reading, but they are more illuminating than anything I have ever read before, and so well written. This memoir, however, could probably only be truly appreciated by those who have already had experience with Caro’s writing. ...more

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Jul 13, 2019 Lorna rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs, biography

Working by Robert Caro is a riveting book that basically highlights his career of bringing us no less than two Pulitzer prize winning biographies among his most commendable body of work. Caro was intrigued by power and his first biography was that of Robert Moses, who essentially built New York City. His next endeavor was the extensive biographies of Lyndon Baines Johnson. I must say that I have a lot of very dear historians that I have been drawn to over the years, but this biographer stands ap Working by Robert Caro is a riveting book that basically highlights his career of bringing us no less than two Pulitzer prize winning biographies among his most commendable body of work. Caro was intrigued by power and his first biography was that of Robert Moses, who essentially built New York City. His next endeavor was the extensive biographies of Lyndon Baines Johnson. I must say that I have a lot of very dear historians that I have been drawn to over the years, but this biographer stands apart. I was so struck with the early years of Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Texas Hill country, of not only his roots, but that of his family and ancestors. Caro, realizing that he would never be able to understand Johnson's personality nor what drove him unless he lived in the Texas Hill Country, which he and his wife did for three years; and this is how you develop a sense of place. It was in those first several chapters of the first book about President Lyndon Johnson, that I was just riveted with the hardscrabble life that these people survived, and the difference that Johnson was able to bring to the people of the Texas Hill Country.

"And therefore I came to feel that if what I had for so long wanted to do what was to discover and disclose the fundamentals of true political power--not theoretical political power but the raw, naked essence of such power--then perhaps the best way to do that was through portraying the life of Robert Moses."

"By' a sense of place,' I mean helping the reader to visualize the physical setting in which a book's action is occurring: to see it clearly enough, in sufficient detail, so that he feels as if he himself were present while the action is occurring. The action thereby becomes more vivid, more real, to him, and the point the author is trying to make about the action, the significance he wants to grasp, is therefore deepened as well."

"It was a step--a big step--toward justice. That's why I tried first to figure out, then to explain how Lyndon Johnson managed to do it. Hard to figure it out, hard to explain it. Harder to do it."

"It's true that I think of the Lyndon Johnson books in terms of very large historical events and trends, because the books are the story not just of Lyndon Johnson, although even in those terms it's a monumental story--the desperate young man who pulled himself out of this incredibly lonely and impoverished place, who rose to the very height of power in America, what he had always dreamed of, and then gave it But the books are also supposed to be a picture of America during the years of Lyndon Johnson." ...more

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Feb 09, 2019 Chris Molnar rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is an odds-and-ends collection that functions as a brief Making Of documentary companion to his epic (and essential) Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson biographies. The recent New Yorker excerpt is essentially a more narrative alternate version, seamlessly combining information from many of the brief essays into one continuous story. The book is more scattered and not as elegant, but all the additional information is equally fascinating and a real tease for whatever extended memoir he's workin ...more

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May 16, 2020 Matt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

Having discovered the wonders of Robert A. Caro a number of years ago, I vowed that I would read all that he had written. Beginning with his work on Robert Moses, I was pulled into the intricate world of a biography that sought not only to explore the world of this powerful urban planner within New York State’s political realm, but also the personal aspects that drove the man to shape such change. While the book was massive, Caro’s writing made it come to life for me. Thereafter, I began the col Having discovered the wonders of Robert A. Caro a number of years ago, I vowed that I would read all that he had written. Beginning with his work on Robert Moses, I was pulled into the intricate world of a biography that sought not only to explore the world of this powerful urban planner within New York State’s political realm, but also the personal aspects that drove the man to shape such change. While the book was massive, Caro’s writing made it come to life for me. Thereafter, I began the colossal task of reading and synthesising the multi-volume biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)—with the fifth and final volume yet to come—in which Caro made the rise from rags to the White House appear monumental for a man who turned politicking into a new art form. Stunned at the superior nature of the writing, I wait impatiently for the aforementioned final volume of the LBJ biography. I saw this book floating around and gritted my teeth at the time, a tad disgruntled that Caro had penned a book on another topic rather than focussing his attention on the biography. However, I caved and chose to read this piece recently, missing Caro and his writing. I now slap myself upside the head for waiting so long, as Caro offers a behind the scenes look at how he got into writing—a journalist with Newsweek—and what led him to choose these two giants in their respective political fields. Between talking about his fact finding and early drafts of both the Moses and LBJ biographies, Caro shares how difficult it was for him to get people to speak with him until he showed that he was not just another journalist looking for a new angle to smear the man, but rather to get to the core of the truths that had long been rumours. Caro actually moved throughout Texas while researching the early years of LBJ, living in the same regions and speaking to some who remembered the 36th President of the United States when he was just a boy or a school teacher. Caro also discusses the reason his books take so long to put together, not least because he writes his first few drafts by hand (ugh!), but also due to the fact that he wants his research to be as thorough as possible. Caro does all his own work, using his wife to assist at times as well, but hires no outside help. While this is to be applauded, it makes his fans surely want to tear out their hair as they wait for the next publication—in my case, I have none to grab hold of. This short piece complements all the work that Caro has done and provides a tiny hint at what is to be expected in the final LBJ volume. At 85 years of age this October, there are concerns (both by the author and his fans) that Caro will complete the book, but I have as much faith as I can that he’ll come through with something. Ok, so maybe this is my way of pleading. Robert A. Caro... please finish the series!!! Recommended for those who have loved any (or all) of Robert A. Caro’s work, as well as the fan who loves to know some of the insider secrets to writing stellar biographical pieces.

While I have read many biographies in my life, Caro’s work is surely some of the best. I tell anyone who has an iota of interest in political biographies that they must look into Caro’s work, as both Robert Moses and LBJ have been treated so thoroughly under Caro’s analytical writing. The central character must be properly analyzed to get the full depth of their impact on the world in a biography, but Caro goes one step further; he seeks to understand some of the minute aspects that shaped the men about whom he based his research. Caro lays it all out here for the curious reader, pulling no punches as he admits the lengths to which he went to get answers. A piece like this is seemingly rare for an author to produce, allowing the reader inside their writing process and behind the secretive curtain of their interview process. Caro dazzles while being frank and uses the chapters to speak clearly about his process. While I mentioned above that I bemoaned his delaying getting Volume 5 completed on the LBJ biography, I am now in the process of eating crow and baking a humble pie. I needed this book to better understand one of the best biographers I have ever discovered. I sit here, unable to put all my words together properly, more because I am in awe of the man than that the book was too hard to review. Anyone who has picked up and positively reviewed a Caro piece will likely want to get this book for themselves. Then again, sometimes not knowing the backstory is best, though this piece is surely no sausage-making endeavour.

Kudos, Mr. Caro, for dazzling me with everything you do. I cannot wait, but will, for your next major publication!

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/... ...more

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Jun 19, 2019 Laura Noggle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019, history, nonfiction

My first Robert Caro book and, dare I say, not my last?

Beyond interesting, Caro takes the reader behind the scenes into his process.

Caro's thoughts on what great writing entails: “Rhythm matters. Mood matters. Sense of place matters. All these things we talk about with novels, yet I feel that for history and biography to accomplish what they should accomplish, they have to pay as much attention to these devices as novels do.”

A two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author (The Power Broker and The Year ...more

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Aug 17, 2019 Lee rated it really liked it · review of another edition

To look at the cover of this, you might think 'Dull, dry.' Not a bit of it. If you have any interest in writing, researching, why you might feel compelled to write or spend your days rolling around in words, or what makes a legendary writer tick, this is highly recommended. ...more

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Aug 11, 2019 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 5000-2019

Thoughts soon.

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Apr 10, 2019 Rebecca rated it really liked it · review of another edition

What this does, more than anything, is make you appreciate the craft that Caro puts into his work. Most of these essays, interviews, and passages were printed elsewhere and have been collected into this short volume. Some are original to the book, though. He is also driven by a force which he isn't even able to identify to flesh out the lives, locales, and intricacies surrounding his subjects.

Caro has written five biographies, not including this slim volume. Four are about Lyndon Johnson (he's What this does, more than anything, is make you appreciate the craft that Caro puts into his work. Most of these essays, interviews, and passages were printed elsewhere and have been collected into this short volume. Some are original to the book, though. He is also driven by a force which he isn't even able to identify to flesh out the lives, locales, and intricacies surrounding his subjects.

Caro has written five biographies, not including this slim volume. Four are about Lyndon Johnson (he's working on the fifth) and the first about Robert Moses. With each he extensively researches, interviews, travels, and sometimes lives around the people that influenced his subjects. He is dogged, untiring, and he has a very understanding wife.

In this, you learn about his process, which is defined most simply by some advice he received as a young reporter, "turn every page." As much as Caro and his research assistant (that same understanding wife) are able to, he sticks to this advice. He also writes in longhand, then typewriter, he outlines extensively (LBJ's book five has a 27 page outline), has notebooks for each book chapter, and walks to work every morning dressed in a suit and tie to prove to himself that, though he doesn't have deadlines, he is going to work. When he interviews, asks the same question over and over, over several interviews, until new details emerge. "What did you see?" "What did you hear?" He also remembers to be silent, to let the silence grow, so his interviewee fills that silence with information. When he struggles to stay quiet, he writes in his reporter's notebook "SU" for shut up.

I'm not sure much of this is helpful to the average writer, but it does illuminate the man more than one would expect. We find that as driven as his two subjects are, he is just as driven, by what? To illuminate political power, to teach us how it works, to expose the pieces so that we become better informed. Also to appreciate that, however destructive political genius can be (displacing half a million low income people in New York City, Vietnam), it can also build (civil rights, highways, parks, healthcare, etc.)

As someone who has not read Caro's biographies, I enjoyed this book. It makes me want to read what he's put his life's efforts into. It is a bit repetitive in some places, likely due to it being piecemeal interviews, articles, essays, etc., but it is worth a look.

Select quotes:

"The more we understand the realities of the political process, the better informed our votes will be. And then, presumably, in some very diffuse, very inchoate way, the better our country will be."

"Really, my books are an examination of what power does to people." "...What power always does is reveal...."

"In my defense: while I am aware that there is no Truth, no objective truth, no single truth, no truth simple or unsimple, either....there are Facts, objective facts, discernible and verifiable. And the more facts you accumulate, the close you come to whatever truth there is." ...more

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Aug 02, 2019 Sean O rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I knew who Robert Caro was, but I hadn't read any of his books. Then recently I heard an interview with him on a Conan O'Brien podcast, of all things.

He sounded really interesting, so I added his mini-memoir "Working" to my holds list at the library.

Well, he's such a good writer that I'm guessing I'm stuck reading all his books now.

The only reason it's four stars instead of five is because I wanted more. ...more

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Apr 15, 2019 Jordan Schneider rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A brief window into a life well lived.

His readers’ reactions to the women of hill county chapter are as good a rebuttal as anyone needs to those who don’t understand how important economic development is.

“Just remember, turn every page.”

Pleasure to listen to how lovingly he speaks of his wife.

“Silence is the weapon.” He writes “su” for shut up in his notebooks.

Get a sense of place by asking people “what did you see” and “what did you hear”

Carbon copies in 79th street boat basin of all of Moses’ ...more

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Mar 19, 2019 Stephen Power rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The value here isn’t in just the words. It’s in Caro’s voice. That’s New York.

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Apr 16, 2019 Frank Stein rated it really liked it · review of another edition

For Caro, this is a remarkably thin book. He said he wrote it to get down few thoughts on his researching and writing process before he died. The truth is, about half the book is made up of previously published magazine articles, many of which themselves trod over territory from his books, and much of the remainder was just published in a New Yorker article. I imagine the impetus for the book might have been financial.

Still, Caro is a wonderful writer, and it's fascinating to get a glimpse of hi For Caro, this is a remarkably thin book. He said he wrote it to get down few thoughts on his researching and writing process before he died. The truth is, about half the book is made up of previously published magazine articles, many of which themselves trod over territory from his books, and much of the remainder was just published in a New Yorker article. I imagine the impetus for the book might have been financial.

Still, Caro is a wonderful writer, and it's fascinating to get a glimpse of his work habits. He explains his inner compulsion, and it is a real compulsion, to research every possible question and angle before writing. He explains his habits of interviewing the same people numerous times, and constantly pushing them to tell him "what you saw" and "what you heard," so he can provide a real lived experience of historic moments to the reader. He explains how he would walk the same path as Lyndon Johnson would walk to work as a young congressional aide, but he could never understand why Johnson would break into a run starting at the Capitol. Then, he decided to do the walk at daybreak, the same time Johnson would have done it, and he saw that the entire East Side of the Capitol was covered with a marvelous light, reflecting off the marble and almost burning anyone who stood near it. Even though Caro eschews "psychohistory," he said he now began to understand what Johnson was feeling at those moments. He also explains to the reader great moments in serendipitous discoveries, such as when the sister and best friend of Lyndon Johnson's most beloved mistress, Alice Marsh, came to tell him that "We've read the Power Broker, so we know you're going to find out about Alice," even though he had no clue who she was. Yet Alice Marsh turned out to be crucial to understanding Johnson's changing political and personal habits, down to his more professional and elegant clothing, in the 1940s and '50s.

For non-Caro fanatics, this book is probably too detailed and abstruse. For true-believers, among whom I include myself, it walks over too much old territory. Yet, for true-believers, almost anything he writes has enough nuggets of wisdom and truth to be worth the price of admission. This book is no exception. ...more

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Apr 11, 2019 Chris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-books

I was so excited for this book. So looking forward to reading more of Caro's beautiful, distinctive writing. He intends to write a Caro-length memoir - and candidly acknowledges that this short book exists in case he runs out of time. I could have read another thousand pages of his methods and anecdotes.

I'm a working historian. I loved his stories of finding buried treasure, convincing a reluctant source to talk, the feeling you get when you figure out how to communicate something to your audie ...more

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Sep 09, 2019 Bob rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

Summary: Less a full biographical memoir than a description of the author's methods of researching material for his books, writing them, and the question that has driven his work.

It seems that I have been reading one of Robert A. Caro's books from time to time since I moved to my current home town nearly thirty years ago. He has been writing them even longer. The four volumes in print of his Years of Lyndon Johnson. His massive The Power Broker on the life and pervasive influence of Robert Moses Summary: Less a full biographical memoir than a description of the author's methods of researching material for his books, writing them, and the question that has driven his work.

It seems that I have been reading one of Robert A. Caro's books from time to time since I moved to my current home town nearly thirty years ago. He has been writing them even longer. The four volumes in print of his Years of Lyndon Johnson. His massive The Power Broker on the life and pervasive influence of Robert Moses on the city of New York and Long Island to this day. He is currently at work finishing the fifth, and hopefully final, volume on the presidency and post-presidency of Lyndon Johnson. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for his work on Robert Moses, and one for one of the Johnson volumes, and just about every other major book award.

In contrast to his massive volumes, Working is a thin and pithy piece of writing in which Carol describes his process, and the question that has driven all his work. From his days as an investigative reporter for Newsday, he had a passion for discovering and explaining to people how things worked in government. That led to the realization that to explain this, you had to understand how power worked. Robert Moses, a figure who never held elective office and yet who probably displaced a half million people for his freeway projects through New York, who created parks for the people of the city and roads to connect them, taught him how power worked. Then to understand the exercise of political power by elected officials, he set his sights on Lyndon Johnson, who rose from the hill country of west Texas to the White House. Along the way, he gained a mastery of legislative processes and control over the Senate and his party that has not been seen before or since.

Such figures do not give up their secrets easily, if at all. Much of Caro's books describe his exhaustive research methods, driven by his curiosity and instincts to get the whole story. One of his early mentors told him to "turn every page." As he did this with Johnson, he discovered a notable change of pattern in the young congressman courteously seeking favor of others, to those others, even senior figures, seeking his attention. More careful page turning isolates the turning point to October 1940. More sleuthing in files pulled out of his House archives uncovered correspondence that indicated he had become the conduit for major campaign donations from a Texas fir, Brown and Root. And so Johnson began to accumulate power.

Part of his research was to see the things of which he was writing, and invite those who he was interviewing to the site of events to describe not only what happened but to describe the scene so he could see it. Soon, memories would flow, and Caro, could then write about events so that his readers could see them. To understand Johnson's youth and gain the trust of area residents he wanted to interview, he and his wife Ina moved to the Hill Country of Johnson's youth for several years. He describes movingly what it was like for Rebekah Johnson, Lyndon's mother, to live in a house out of sight of any others as night fell on the Hill Country.

He describes his determination to get to the bottom of the question of whether Johnson stole his 1948 election to the Senate, won by a razor thin margin with the ballots of "Box 13" in Jim Wells County. His research took him to Luis Salas, who he tracked for years, who finally entrusted him with a manuscript that provided the evidence that the election had indeed been stolen. He recounts in interviews the times he "had the story" and yet sensed there was more and dared to ask one more question, and discovered there was more.

In addition to describing how he researched, how he interviewed, recounting a number of those interviews, he describes his writing process. Someone has said there is no good writing, only re-writing. Caro is proof of that, moving from longhand manuscripts to typewritten copy marked up and re-typed, to corrections throughout the publishing process. He admits he would re-write the finished books if he could.

And now I understood how it has taken him fifty years to write those books, and still not be done with Johnson. He gives us an inside glimpse into what it takes to create these magisterial works: curiosity, diligence in the archives, dogged persistence in the interviews, working and re-working the material to get it right.

With investigative journalism struggling for its life, I concluded the book wondering whether I was reading the narrative of some of the last of a breed. It seems this is an important question because of the larger vision that drives Caro. The book ends with a 2016 interview in The Paris Review. The interviewer has observed that Caro hopes "the books serve a larger civic purpose." Caro replies:

Well, you always hope something. OI think the more light that can be thrown on the actual processes we're voting about, the better. We live in a democracy, so ultimately, even despite a Robert Moses, a lot of political power comes from our votes. The more we understand about the realities of the political process, the better informed our votes will be. And then, presumably, in some very diffuse, very inchoate way, the better our country will be.

We need investigators like Caro to throw light on processes. Will we find ways to continue to mentor and support them and offer them platforms from which to shine their light? And when they do, will we pay them any heed? One thing Caro is right about. Our democracy depends on it. ...more

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Jun 14, 2019 Karen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

At first I was disappointed with the way this book was going. Caro seemed to be re-hashing scenes from his biographies with some first person commentary thrown in. TELL ME HOW TO BE A GREAT WRITER, I wanted to shout. Give me the key! Tell me the secret! Do all the legwork so I can take the credit! Etc., etc.

This is not a how-to book. Think of it as a director's cut. A compendium of extra interviews that come at the end of a movie. Framed this way, I was able to see more clearly the genius of wha ...more

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Feb 16, 2019 Jeff Swartz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I have grown up reading Robert Caro. This is both a great introduction to Caro and a great extra if you’ve read the Moses and Johnson bios.
He does a great job of explaining how he works. Fascinating and fun.

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Jun 06, 2019 Aaron added it · review of another edition

Such a treat to hear this in his voice. Much reused material but I hadn’t read what is here republished, and, damn it, the man has demands on his time! Some dramatic turning points with great stories attached. Particularly memorable as to his formative years and method are his big break in investigative journalism after being written off as an Ivy League know-nothing, his resignation from the position of speechwriter after witnessing firsthand the racism of his erstwhile political boss, and the Such a treat to hear this in his voice. Much reused material but I hadn’t read what is here republished, and, damn it, the man has demands on his time! Some dramatic turning points with great stories attached. Particularly memorable as to his formative years and method are his big break in investigative journalism after being written off as an Ivy League know-nothing, his resignation from the position of speechwriter after witnessing firsthand the racism of his erstwhile political boss, and the revelation that he needed to show not just the decisions of the powerful but their human impact on the (relatively) powerless — passages which in his books can bring you to tears. The stories of the tradecraft of research and interviewing are surprisingly thrilling — like Luiz Sales, instrumental to the “Box 13” scandal of 1948, getting his memoir out of a storage chest. It would have been great to see more on Caro’s wife and co-collaborator Ina. Ultimately, the explanation of why Caro has spent his mature decades as he has is essentially that he was too intellectually honest to accept bad explanations for things people fundamentally did not understand (how did Moses accrue his power? how did Johnson go from Hill Country to Capitol Hill? why was the first meaningful Civil Rights bill since Reconstruction passed under Johnson?). He was driven to understand and then artfully show (“I would have edited the finished books if I could”) the ways things really work (shades of von Ranke’s “Geschichte wie es eigentlich Gewesen”). His rigour is the product not of choice but of a compulsive urge to sketch the richness of events and their consequences in ever finer shades and gradations until Knopf pulls the pencil out of his hand. This is Caro’s account. Still, it would be interesting to go one step deeper into what he thinks the impact of studying history can be or should be, and what he makes of having spent his life in this most unusual way. He touches on this only briefly in closing. ...more

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Oct 08, 2019 Jak Krumholtz rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Caro is amazing. I limit myself to one book of his a year to remind myself just how special he is. This collection is an overview in his process of creating masterpieces and I found it insightful. Although tempting as it’s bite-sized I don’t recommend starting here for Caro, this is better appreciated after reading a couple full books first to see what his method produces.

“I never thought of my books as Robert Moses & Lyndon Johnson. I thought of writing biographies as means of illuminating the ...more

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Dec 30, 2019 Alex rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This was disappointing. I could explain in more detail but am reluctant to do so for fear of discouraging others from reading a book where they may find insight that I have missed, or strike a chord of resonance where I landed flat.

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May 19, 2019 Rachel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Wow. I’m now feeling inspired to up my writing game and dig in to some chunky gorgeous non-fiction.

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Apr 12, 2019 Dan Downing rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Winning a Pulitzer prize is a big deal for writers. Winning two is outstanding. Scarfing up two for the first four books you write, of a total of five, is huge. In Robert A. Caro's case, he has written his sixth book, a much different deal than his first five.
"Working" is brief, personal, insightful and quite well written, a Caro hallmark. In it, he describes his larger goal, beyond simple biography. For his legion of fans, he has met his goal and more: those who read about Robert Moses learned ...more

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Apr 26, 2019 Alex MacMillan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Mr. Caro is notorious for being meticulous with his research, passionate about his writing, and indefatigable in his pursuit of the truth. Here, the world’s greatest living biographer takes a break from writing the final volume his of LBJ biographies to explain how the sausage gets made, revealing the persistence and sheer luck that it took for Robert and his wife to create timeless classics. He shares the choicest anecdotes from his decades of muckraking, detailing the months and years of inves ...more

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May 07, 2019 Susan O rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-nonfiction-challenge, 2019-read, library-read, memoir

"Rhythm matters. Mood matters. Sense of place matters. All these things we talk about with novels, yet I feel that for history or biography to accomplish what they should accomplish, they have to pay as much attention to these devices as novels do." p 193 of Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing

Having read 5 of Caro's works - The Power Broker and the 4 LBJ volumes - I hesitated to give this book a 5 simply because of its length. It didn't have that deeply satisfying feeling of sinking into ...more

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Aug 17, 2020 John of Canada rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: how-to, motivation, history, made-me-think, non-fiction, favourites, essays

This is my favourite book of 2020.Clear writing,insights that seem so obvious after he pointed them out,and it's a really good view of the love he has for his wife.Fans of John McPhee should enjoy this.A very human book. ...more

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May 24, 2019 Eli added it · review of another edition

Robert Caro is wired differently. This is the book he wrote with his left hand while his right hand was scouring the Johnson archive for the smoking gun on Vietnam. It's a collection of (mostly previously published) recollections, anecdotes, and lessons from half a century of "researching, interviewing, writing." Weighing in at under three hundred pages, it's a slim volume by Caro's standards. Nevertheless, it manages to be very repetitious, but no worse off for it. Caro has led a unique life, a Robert Caro is wired differently. This is the book he wrote with his left hand while his right hand was scouring the Johnson archive for the smoking gun on Vietnam. It's a collection of (mostly previously published) recollections, anecdotes, and lessons from half a century of "researching, interviewing, writing." Weighing in at under three hundred pages, it's a slim volume by Caro's standards. Nevertheless, it manages to be very repetitious, but no worse off for it. Caro has led a unique life, and he has much to tell us.

Caro says that his life's work is elucidating the workings of political power through the biographies of powerful men. "The Power Broker" is a step-by-step account of Robert Moses' consolidation and exercise of power over New York. "The Years of Lyndon Johnson" is the same template blown up to a national scale. Moses and Johnson were geniuses at acquiring and exercising political power. "Working" demonstrates that Caro has acquired a power of his own. His is an intellectual, creative power. His biographies are so exhaustively, obsessively researched (the extent to which this is true is made clear on every page of "Working") that they exert a historical gravity of their own rivaling that of their subjects. Even if a comparatively minute number of people have slogged through 1,200 pages on Moses, and thousands more on Johnson (and counting) the impact that these narratives have had on our understanding of these men, and probably American History at large, is exceedingly great. Take it from me, I haven't read any of Caro's books but this one.

Put your hands on a physical copy of The Power Broker. Look at the cover artwork: an illustration of a cracked, Ozymandias-like monument bearing Moses' visage. Pick it up, feel the weight. The book itself is monumental. It is a physical, textual translation of the bottomless ambition of its subject. It is a refutation of that ambition point by point. Caro's intellectual achievements rival Moses' and Johnson's political ones. Reading "Working," it's clear that he's as urgently driven to write about power as those other men were to wield it. You get the sense that every second spent away from his work is utter agony for the guy.

There are many wonderful stories in this little book, from Caro's coaxing repressed memories out of LBJ's notoriously braggadocious brother, to his uncovering a pivotal financial scheme early in Johnson's congressional career. But my favorite has to be the time Caro was first invited to Robert Moses' summer home out on Long Island to interview him. Moses had stonewalled Caro's attempts to contact him or any of his associates, as he had every other plucky biographer who came along. Caro, of course, had managed to make some headway in his research despite Moses' attempts to stop him. So Moses invited him out to his house. Caro entered the main room of the house, the far wall of which had been replaced by an enormous glass window. Out the left side of the window was the Robert Moses State Parkway. Out the right side of the window was the Robert Moses Causeway, leading to Robert Moses State Park, in the middle of which sat Robert Moses Tower. And in front of the window, sitting in a large high-backed chair, was Robert Moses. He was "framed by his monuments," says Caro. And what is "Working," but Caro's attempt to do the same for himself? ...more

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Apr 13, 2019 Ivan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: writing-craft, biography-and-memoirs

I’ve been eagerly awaiting this book ever since I heard he was (ahem) working on it. I was a little disappointed that some of this material has been previously published—and as recently-converted Caro fan I’ve read it all—but I’m glad it’s all compiled here in one book. This isn’t the memoir that Caro would someday like to write, but at 83, with his fifth and final LBJ volume still years from completion, he wanted to share a few things from his work on his Robert Moses and LBJ biographies—really ...more

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Nov 04, 2019 Andrew Pratley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

If like me you have read the 4 volumes of the biography Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro you will understand much about both men. I have yet to read Caro's biography of Robert Moses & after reading this book my appetite has been further whetted.

Robert Caro is dogged & persistent. He pays great attention to what he writes & how he writes it. He is a master of his form. As an amateur historian who has never written anything longer than a very long essay Caro is both an inspiration & an exemplar.

In ...more

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About Robert A. Caro

Robert A. Caro

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A former investigative reporter for Newsday, Robert Caro is the author of The Power Broker (1974), a biography of the urban planner Robert Moses which he won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize. President Obama said that he read the biography when he was 22 years old and that the book "mesmerized" him. Obama said, "I'm sure it helped to shape how I think about politics."

Caro has also written four biographies ...more

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The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

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“the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, a liberal immigration bill, some seventy different education bills—they’re all passed during the 1960s by President Lyndon Johnson.” — 2 likes

“But when I began researching Robert Moses’ expressway-building, and kept reading, in textbook after textbook, some version of the phrase “the human cost of highways” with never a detailed examination of what the “human cost” truly consisted of or of how it stacked up against the benefits of highways, I found myself simply unable to go forward to the next chapter. I felt I just had to try to show—to make readers not only see but understand and feel—what “human cost” meant.” — 2 likes

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