WORKING, Robert Caro’s vibrant memoir

Prize-winning biographer Robert Caro has won numerous prizes for his explorations of the power of two famous Americans, Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson.  In his memoir, WORKING, published by Knopf in 2022, Caro illuminates his fascination with the subject of power, and gives insight into his dedication to writing about forces that shaped the twentieth century. 

In WORKING, Caro writes about his experience as a young reporter for Newsday, handed an assignment about the visionary Robert Moses’ use of power.  He wrote THE POWERBROKER: ROBERT MOSES AND THE FALL OF NEW YORK, published in 1974, to show how an unelected urban planner dominated the mayors and governors of New York, using the force of his will to remake New York by building dozens of highways and bridges.  The author interviewed more than 500 people to research the great forces that molded twentieth century New York, investigating how Moses’ power grew, influenced politics, advanced society and motivated corruption. 

Caro has devoted the rest of his career to writing four volumes about Lyndon Johnson, beginning with THE PATH TO POWER, published in 1982, two volumes about Johnson’s dynamic life in politics, and the fourth volume, THE PASSAGE OF POWER, in 2012.   He writes about Johnson’s early life before delving into his acquisition of power, the times and the great forces that shaped them.  In WORKING, Caro brings the reader close to his methods of finding out the truth.  “It takes time to reveal the real story about power,” he says. Caro interviewed thousands of people for the Johnson books, and he is now writing a fifth volume, THE PASSAGE OF POWER, to complete his chronicle of the last great social-political reform movement of the twentieth century.

In WORKING, Caro reveals what has been called his “deep dive” into uncovering truth that has led to two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, three National Book Critic Awards, and more.  He talks about a “redemptive hunger” that still perplexes him.  There is always a further question.  For learning about Johnson’s childhood, Caro and his research collaborating wife, Ina, moved to the Texas Hill Country for three years.  His memoir is full of tales of soaking in the environment.  Caro sat Johnson’s younger brother Sam at the Johnson family dining table, while the author sat quietly behind him and listened carefully as the ambiance evoked memories of the family at dinnertime.  To learn how Johnson won a controversial Senatorial election in 1984, Caro pursued beyond a Supreme Court investigation that had been closed forty years earlier.  He found a frail, elderly man with a witness report on how 200 disputed votes had been certified in that election, securing a Senate seat for Johnson and opening the possibility of the Presidency. 

WORKING unfolds with the warmth and clarity of Caro’s writing, as well as stunning revelations of his intellectual rigor, his openness, wit and includes the charming description of his longhand writing of multiple drafts before typing his final version on his Smith Corona model 210 typewriter.    Read WORKING for an engaging and informative introduction to America’s acclaimed biographer, Robert Caro.   For further enjoyment, watch the documentary Turn Every Page about the 50 year professional relationship between two literary legends, Robert Caro and his editor, Robert Gottleib, a light-hearted trip through their collegial meetings of the mind and their fights over punctuation.

Jane Weingarten