John McWhorter: evaluation

Transcript context

…What is the most underrated biography? The Great One by William Henry III of Jackie Gleason is the most touching biography I’ve ever read of a monstrous but rather sad person who has that Ralph Kramden childhood and becomes famous and can’t quite handle it. Hurts a lot of people. If you ask me this, and I’m a big biography fan, so I’m trying to go over everything. But that’s one that I’ve actually read more than once. So I can’t say The Power Broker because everybody reads that. But ones that just came and went — that one really killed me. And then last year, one of Weegee. You always see the photographs of Weegee, some person laying on the pavement. You think, “Weegee — he was short. ” No, there was more to Weegee than that. And Bonanos’s biography last year of Weegee, and I’m not just pushing this because I happen to be on the National Book Critics Circle — that’s over, but that was a really good book that I suspect is going to get lost amidst some glossier biographies. If someone says, “oh, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan — they’re just the new version of the old American songbook.” They’re not even new anymore, of course, but is that crazy? Is there always an American songbook every era? Now it’s Taylor Swift. Or was there a unique American songbook, and those conditions can never be recreated again? I think I know your answer, but please tell us.…

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