I’ve started writing a new biography but I still have some doubts, so I’m not ready to announce it yet. But I’ve re-read Nigel Hamilton’s How To Do Biography: A Primer (2008) as part of my process. I first read it just as I began writing the Katharine Prichard biography and it’s been a great refresher a decade later. One of the joys of this book is his dedication to the art of biography and his strong rebuttal of the criticisms which are made of the genre. There’s a sense of having a well-armed ally on my side.

When I reveal my new subject, a common response will be that there’s already so many books about X. I take it as a sign of Australia’s immaturity – and size, admittedly – that a major figure can have only one thorough (and problematic) cradle-to-grave biography (along with other books about them) and be seen as ‘done’. Hamilton reminds us of how very differently biographers will approach the same subject and the very different portraits which will emerge. He took on JFK and Bill Clinton, among others.

Hamilton’s book follows the process of writing a biography sequentially – even though it’s never as neat as this – from selecting a subject, defining your approach, research, and following your subject through the stages of their life. He gives lots of examples from good biographies illustrating successful approaches.

Some quotes:

‘Above all, [good biographers] question fact, they play with fact – appreciating that play is something which, far from being absent from biography, is the privilege of biographers: their poetic licence, so to speak.’ (147)

[This is something which has rung so true for me. Sometimes it’s important to leave in the uncertainties, the conflicts between different accounts. It’s part of the complexity of telling someone’s life and makes it more interesting.]

‘Those biographers who cut the corners, and attempt thereby to go straight to the meat of the human drama, seldom succeed in the long run, for the trust you must build up with your reader has to be based upon gradual, painstaking detail that establishes your bona fides.’ (189)

[He was making a slightly different point, but this spoke to me about the patience required. I was having a boring time slogging through Trove for my new book, and I wanted to rush to get some words on the page. But I was reminded that the interesting stuff is always hard won. Usually from lots of boring slog. And events are least interesting as a writer (and for the reader) when the writer is not fully across the context and are trying to wing it.]

‘Total immersion, dogged research, hard work, skilful narrative, deep respect for the task, illumination of the themes tackled, compassion for the human dimension of history and achievement: these are the qualities you need.’ (197)

[Hamilton highlights these as the qualities a biographer needs rather than a background in the occupation one is writing about – hence politicians don’t usually write the best political biographies. But do political historians write the best political biographies? Well, not in every case.]