Robert Caro, Robert Gottlieb, and telling stories that are far too long but still become bestsellers
How does power work? That was a central question for Robert Caro, the author of “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.” How did this unelected official—Robert Moses—gain so much power to shape New York City? The question gets answered in ~1200 pages. It’s a big, Pulitzer-prize-winning book.
How power works is also a theme in Lizzie Gottlieb’s film “Turn Every Page,” which examines the 40+ year relationship between the meticulous, hard-working writer Robert Caro and renowned editor Robert Gottlieb (who helped midwife so many of today’s revered authors—see the list below). For anyone interested in what collaboration looks like between two people at the top of their game, the film is a must-see.
Both author and editor were committed to much more than simply sharing information. Both were determined to tell a story that would pull readers all the way through. A story that gave enough details so readers could form their own opinion.
Caro came to the collaboration with deeply-researched facts about how Robert Moses turned tollway management into a cash cow and permanently impacted New York’s extensive built environment. Gottlieb came to the collaboration with the impulse to “serve” the story. He had an innate instinct and passion to improve stories.
Together, Caro and Gottlieb did their own reshaping of what a well-told story looked like. The answer: it might be a really big book—Caro is still working on Volume 5 of a series on Lyndon Johnson, though Gottlieb recently passed.
As a copywriter, the film holds a special interest. It shows the deep research and careful writing that goes into telling a good story. But the interaction between writer and editor is mesmerizing in the respect each brought to the collaboration. The film reminds me of our work with our clients to unearth their stories and then tell them. Sometimes we’re more like Gottlieb. Sometimes we’re more like Caro. But always, the story is at the center of the collaboration.
Perhaps the more important question the film answers is, can power grow in collaboration?
There is a moment near the end of “Turn Every Page” where Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb allow the filmmaker—finally—to film their famed editing sessions. She had been asking them for permission for years. Caro finally relented but with one condition: without sound. The editing discussion was too private for that. Chet Baker provides the soundtrack for the mystery behind a good collaboration.
From Gottlieb’s New York Times Obituary:
“Mr. Gottlieb edited novels by, among many others, John le Carré, Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Joseph Heller, Doris Lessing and Chaim Potok; science fiction by Michael Crichton and Ray Bradbury; histories by Antonia Fraser and Barbara Tuchman; memoirs by former President Bill Clinton and Katharine Graham, the former publisher of The Washington Post; and works by Jessica Mitford and Anthony Burgess.”
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