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Articles by Deirdre Bair
Play for us, Fats
The Sherman House Hotel that stood in 1926 was the fourth structure of the same name to grace Chicago’s Loop. The first, built in 1836, was demolished to make way for the second. That building, in turn, was a casualty of the Great Chicago Fire that consumed some 3.3 miles of the city. The one that replaced it ultimately suffered the same fate as the first. Construction began on the fourth and final version in 1910.
Elaine Showalter
In an uncharacteristic moment of playfulness during her affair with Nelson Algren, Simone de Beauvoir called herself his ‘frog wife’. Although it echoed his tough-guy slang about their Paris-Chicago romance, the phrase has the ring of feminist fable. Like Hans Christian Andersen’s little mermaid, whose story Beauvoir wept over as a child, the frog wife is a changeling, unlike other women; pebbly and awkward, she cannot wed the prince.
The earth had need of me
Almost from the moment she published The Second Sex in November 1949, Simone de Beauvoir was asked why she’d never written a female character who lived a free life, the sort she imagined in her final chapter, ‘The Independent Woman’. If the mother of 20th-century feminism couldn’t imagine a free woman, who could? At first she would answer brusquely.
Five of the best cultural books to catch up on
Photograph: Moviestore/Rex/Shutterstock Stranger Than Kindness by Nick Cave (Canongate) As if being able to make a record while grieving wasn’t remarkable enough, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ album Ghosteen is extraordinary for its artistry: it’s a thing of beautiful and painfully direct craft. This new tome goes deep into Cave’s creative process, via his artwork, lyrics and photographs, and his ever-succinct commentary.
First Impressions – Air Mail
Deirdre Bair was a young and unknown writer when, in the early 70s, Samuel Beckett authorized her to write his biography. The project led Bair to her next subject: Simone de Beauvoir. First Impressions A new book remembers more than a decade spent in the orbit of Beckett and de Beauvoir.
Learning the Wiles of a Biographer, With Beckett and Beauvoir (Published 2019)
Book Review|Learning the Wiles of a Biographer, With Beckett and Beauvoir https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/books/review/parisian-lives-samuel-beckett-simone-de-beauvoir-and-me-deirdre-bair.html NonFiction Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share.
Read an excerpt from Deirdre Bair’s memoir about her time with Simone de Beauvoir
Deirdre Bair November 12 November 12 In her memoir, “Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me,” out Nov. 12, biographer Deirdre Bair recounts her experience writing the biographies of authors Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir. Beauvoir — who’s perhaps best known for the seminal feminist work “The Second Sex” — was a writer, intellectual and activist. In this excerpt, Bair recounts one of the first sessions she had with Beauvoir at her apartment in Paris.
On the Difficulty of Convincing Samuel Beckett of Just About Anything
“So you are the one who is going to reveal me for the charlatan that I am.” It was the first thing Samuel Beckett ever said to me on that bitter cold day, November 17th, 1971, as we sat in the minuscule lobby of the Hôtel du Danube on the rue Jacob. I had gone to Paris at his express invitation, to meet him and talk aboutwriting his biography. We were originally scheduled to meet on November 7th, and for ten days I had no idea where he was, because he never showed up and never canceled.
Review: 'Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir and Me'
They “cordially detested each other.” So says Deirdre Bair of Samuel Beckett and Simone de Beauvoir. And Bair should know. She spent years working on their biographies — Beckett’s in the 1970s, Beauvoir’s in the 1980s — when she was a young academic who, as she often mentions, struggled to balance family and her academic career. Both biographies were well regarded, but audiences wanted more. “What were they really like?” readers often asked Bair.
PARISIAN LIVES by Deirdre Bair
A biographer recalls the challenges of writing her first books.
LGA-ORD | The New Yorker
Gray bleak final afternoon ladies and gentlemen this is your captain your cap welcoming you aboard the continuation of Flyways flight 185 from nothingness to New York’s Laguardia non non non non non non nonstop to Chicago’s Ohare and on from there in the passing of gray afternoons to empty bleak eternal nothingness again with the Carey bus the credit-card machine the Friskem metal detector the boarding pass the in-flight magazine all returned to tiny bits of grit blowing across the steppe for...
Al Capone, The Original Public Enemy No. 1
This program originally broadcast on October 27, 2016.The real Al Capone. From Brooklyn kid to Chicago crime boss, a new biography gives the whole story.This Jan. 19, 1931, file photo shows Chicago mobster Al Capone at a football game. (AP File)The gangster Al Capone had a short, famed time on top. The Brooklyn kid who went to Chicago in the heart of Prohibition, built a crime empire there, had hundreds murdered, made a mint, and ended up in Alcatraz.
Gangster's descendants defend him in 'Capone'
In “Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend,” Deirdre Bair goes where many biographers haven’t ventured: Al as a family guy.Using remembrances from Capone’s descendants, particularly three granddaughters, Bair paints a fuller and more intimate picture of the gangster accused of murdering hundreds in 1920s Chicago.The author, who has penned acclaimed biographies of such intellectuals as Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir and Carl Jung, would seem to be on foreign ground in a book about...
Family memories of Capone left unchallenged in new bio by Deidre Bair
Family memories of Capone left unchallenged in new bio by Deidre Bair The life story of Al Capone is unrivaled in Chicago history, and perhaps American history. How did an ill-educated bouncer from Brooklyn become not just a powerful crime boss — many such crime bosses have come and gone — but one who fascinates us generation after generation? Deirdre Bair’s new book, “Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend,” is the latest volume to attempt to answer this question.
Al Capone, The Original Public Enemy No. 1
The real Al Capone. From Brooklyn kid to Chicago crime boss, a new biography gives the whole story.This Jan. 19, 1931, file photo shows Chicago mobster Al Capone at a football game. (AP File)The gangster Al Capone had a short, famed time on top. The Brooklyn kid who went to Chicago in the heart of Prohibition, built a crime empire there, had hundreds murdered, made a mint, and ended up in Alcatraz. What he wanted, says biographer Deirdre Bair, was the American Dream.
Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend: Deirdre Bair: 9780385537155: Books
From a National Book Award-winning biographer, the first complete life of legendary gangster Al Capone to be produced with the cooperation of his family, who provided the author with exclusive access to personal testimony and archival documents. Born in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, to poor, Italian immigrant parents, Al Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history.
How Did Al Capone Become the New Hitler?
Donald Trump, natch; but also Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz and even Rick Perry have been compared by critics to the archetypal mobster. Why? Among our neighbors to the north and south, pundits and political leaders are warning us that Donald J. Trump’s candidacy bears a strong resemblance to the rise of dictators like Mussolini and Hitler.
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