The whole business of writing about a living person is a fraud compromise. I mean on the one hand it's

it offers many possibilities because you that living person can guide you in all sorts of

ways and you can ask them what they did and what they didn't do.

It's completely different from writing about someone who is dead and who can't interfere.

Welcome back to Working. I'm your host Isaac Butler.

And I'm your other host, June Thomas.

June, who do we have on this week's episode?

Well, the lovely voice we heard at the top of the show belongs to Adam Sissman, an eminent

biographer most recently of spy novelist John Lecarey about whom he has

published two biographies. Not one but two. Amazing. You know I feel like it's been quite a long

time since we've had a biographer on so I'm excited to have one on again.

What drew you to Adam specifically?

Yeah, that's right. Back in 2021, Riemann had a fantastic conversation with Heather Clark,

author of Red Comet, that fantastic biography of Sylvia Plath.

But yes, it's been a while.

So I've been reading a bunch of biographies of late, and I found Adam's most recent book, The Secret Life of John Lickore, so fascinating that I basically

started re-reading it the minute I had finished it.

That is very high praise, because you are a busy, busy woman and so you've got one wild and

precious life that you're going to spend it reading a book a second time immediately

that's incredible. It's a really fascinating book and it contains a sort of meta narrative about the challenges he faced,

writing about the career's life, and I just wanted to ask him more about those travails.

Am I saying that working gave me an excuse to do that?

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