This week, two life stories. First up, what's it like to write the authorized biography

of Philip Roth? His biographer Blake Bailey will be here to talk about it. And then,

was Lady Bird Johnson more powerful than previously known? Julia Swag will join us to discuss

Lady Bird Johnson, hiding in plain sight. Alexander Altair will have an update from the

publishing world. Plus, our critics will join us for the latest in literary criticism. This

is the Book Review Podcast for the New York Times. It's April 9th. I'm Pamela Paul.

Blake Bailey joins us now from Virginia. His new biography is of Philip Roth. Blake,

thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. All right, so there's a long story to how you became

Philip Roth's biographer. You were not his first choice, but you were his ultimate choice. Can

you just give us some background on that process? I was having breakfast back in 2012 with the

late Jim Atlas, who was the biographer of Saul Bello. And at one point, we were talking shop,

and he said, you know, that Ross Miller is no longer returning Philip Roth's phone calls.

We in the biographer business knew that Ross, though we didn't particularly know who Ross was,

we knew that for a long time he had been Philip's biographer. I was between projects. I had just

finished my third biography about Charles Jackson who wrote the last weekend. And I had communicated

with Philip previously about my cheaper biography because they were pleasant acquaintances. I wrote

him a letter. So I had his address. So I wrote him a letter and he invited me to New York and said,

why don't we talk? So we did. And what was that conversation like? Well, we had two conversations.

The first time I came, he was very pleasant, very conversational, a friend of his Julia Gollier,

a former girlfriend, stopped by. She's a psychiatrist, and he has absolute faith in her character

judgments. So I think he invited her over to check me out. And we never got around to talking about

the prospect of writing his biography per se. And toward the end, I said, I got to go. And he said,

...