Doris Kearns Goodwin Interview (page: 6 / 9) Pulitzer Prize for History	Print Interview

What do you think it was about your work that earned you the Pulitzer Prize? What was it about your work that singled it out for this award?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: I'd like to think that what my style of writing is, is an attempt not so much to judge the characters that I'm writing about, to expose them, to label them, to stereotype them, but instead to make them come alive for the reader with all their strengths and their flaws intact. So there's not a way in which, when I start the book, I say, "I'm going to make Franklin great," or "I'm going to get Franklin Roosevelt." But rather, "I want to render him as he lived, day by day."
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I found an usher's diary at the Roosevelt Library that recorded what Franklin and Eleanor did every day. "Awakened at 6:30; had breakfast with Henry Stimson; had lunch with Joe Lash," or whatever. I could then go to the diaries of the people they had lunch or breakfast with to record what they said at breakfast or lunch. Eleanor wrote 25 letters a day to her friends. I got every single one of those letters and figured out what her mood was like on that day. Made a huge chronology, before I even started the book, of 1940 to '45, the years that I was covering, so that I could recreate every day, in a certain sense, in their lives.
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Eleanor wrote a column every day, which often reflected what she was feeling that day. Not that the book went every day from '40 to '45, but you'd have themes in the book, in terms of civil rights or battles of the war.

I tried to ground every issue in a day's experience, so that the reader could feel what it was like to be Franklin and Eleanor at that time. This means that if they made mistakes, you could at least understand why they did. If they did something admirable, you could feel it with them. So your emotions would go on a roller coaster as you were reading the book. At times you would feel great about Franklin, at other times you would be mad at Eleanor, and vice-versa. It is not a question of coming at it from the start as if I'm out to get them, or out to praise them. I just want them to come alive again. That's all you really ask of history. Then the reader can feel, with all the complexity of emotions, what it is that is happening to them. I would like to think that is what the Pulitzer Prize people recognized, was that desire to make them come alive without an agenda, to try and push them into a labeled stereotype.
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On the other side of the coin, how has criticism of your work affected you?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: It makes you realize something.

As much research as you think you're doing, you're going to mess up, without a question. There are some times -- I mean, I got the date of Roosevelt's birthday wrong! I can't believe it! I knew what his birthday was, and somehow I'd typed it wrong into the typewriter, and in the first edition of the book I had it the wrong day. Then immediately one reader called me up. Luckily now, the great thing about books is they print new and newer editions every few weeks, so you can correct your mistakes. And then, the next edition that comes out had the right date in it. There will be more serious things like that, that you might get wrong. Somebody will come up to you afterwards and say, "You know, you just didn't interpret this right. I was there," and maybe you didn't interview that person. What I think I've learned is that you're never going to get it all right, and you can't obsess about having a fact wrong or a date wrong or something like that, as long as you tried as best you could. And you know some of them you will be able to change with the new editions of the book or the paperback. But even if it's still wrong, if it is not meant, if you've done the kind of research that you're sure is pretty good, then you just have to have confidence in it, so that nothing is perfect in life. I think that is what the criticism has helped me to understand.
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Sometimes people will find things that are wrong. Sometimes they will even find an approach that you took wrong. If you think you took the right approach, then you just absorb the criticism, but you don't change your mind. Sometimes you read something and you'll say, "You know, that person is right. I didn't spend enough time on that subject and I wish I had. Next time, I'll think about that."

Do you ever have any doubts about yourself or your ability as you proceed through your work?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: When the first book came out on Lyndon Johnson, before the reviews came out, I was certainly not sure how it would be received. It was the first. I had never even written articles before, much less a book, and I was young in writing it, and a lot was riding on it, because I needed to stay teaching for my tenure at Harvard. I needed it for my reputation as an historian. So I remember, in those months before the book came out, being quite scared. I mean, there's no question. The weird thing is -- I mean, luckily the reviews were wonderful. So I had this quick sense of being able to feel somewhat confident about it. But then you think, once the first one was really successful, then you would be fine when the second one came out. But I got nervous all over again, and I think you almost have to. I think it's like anybody who performs. If you're not nervous each time a new book comes out -- or even when I'm writing a book, if I finish one chapter and I go to write the next chapter, I wonder, "Can I write this next chapter? What do I have to say? I don't remember what I'm going to do."
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So you never feel so confident -- even after it has accumulated over a period of time -- that you lose that sense of worry about what it is going to be like. Maybe one of these books will not work. Then it is going to be much tougher to have to absorb that. I haven't had that experience yet, but it certainly might happen.

Have you thought about it?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: To be honest, when I think about Lincoln, that's probably the scariest one, because so much has been written about him. I have to make sure that I have an angle that other people haven't quite used, or else you really might have the people saying, "Why did she choose this subject when so much else has been written about it?" That one scares me. But I'm five years away, so hopefully by the time I get to the end of it, I'll have figured out something that I feel is different, rather than just saying what everyone else said.

So you are confident you will be able to find the solution?

Doris Kearns Goodwin: Not completely confident. I don't think I'll feel confident until I find the solution. I've been able to do it before. All three of the subjects I've written about before were ones that had been written about a lot: Lyndon Johnson, the Kennedys and the Roosevelts. It's not so much that you come up with a totally original approach. It's just that your story is somewhat different from the other ways that other people have done it. I don't quite know how to do that yet with Lincoln. So until I figure that out, I won't feel confident. But I have a lot of time.

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