Working

How the Work Gets Done

Robert Caro has spent most of his professional life writing two biographies: The Power Broker (Robert Moses) and the multi-volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson. At a total of several thousand pages of documentation, they represent the most sustained biographical effort in American letters. Working is his account of how he has done it — the methods, the philosophy, and the purpose behind decades of research that most writers could not imagine undertaking.

The book is organized around a series of reflections rather than a conventional memoir narrative: how he came to biography, how he conducts interviews, how he understands the relationship between a biographer and their subject, what he believes about the purpose of the work. The method he describes is essentially extreme: “turn every page” means reading every document in an archive, not sampling. Living in the Texas Hill Country to understand Johnson’s origins. Tracking down elderly sources who had never been interviewed because no previous researcher had thought to find them.

The Sources

The most valuable sections of Working are Caro’s accounts of specific research breakthroughs — the moments when the accumulated documentary work suddenly revealed something that changed his understanding of his subject. The interview with the woman in the Hill Country who finally told him about the sexual relationship between Johnson and Alice Glass. The archival discovery that confirmed the Box 13 fraud beyond any remaining doubt.

These accounts are also implicitly an argument for the kind of research Caro practices: that the truth about powerful people requires time, persistence, and the willingness to find sources that easier researchers miss. The truth is usually hidden, and finding it requires more work than most people are willing to do.

What Biography Is For

Caro’s deepest argument in Working is about purpose. He is not interested in biography as a form of literary entertainment or even as historical record, though it serves both functions. He is interested in biography as a tool for understanding how power actually operates in democratic societies — how it is accumulated, exercised, and used against the people it is nominally meant to serve. This is why the Johnson biography requires as many volumes as it does: the question Caro is answering cannot be answered more briefly.

Our rating: 4.7/5 — Caro’s memoir of his working methods is essential reading for anyone interested in biography, nonfiction research, or the question of what it actually takes to understand how power works.

A Master Explains the Method

Working, published in 2019, is a slim memoir in which one of the twentieth century’s great biographers explains exactly how he does what he does. Across decades, Caro has produced essentially two bodies of work — The Power Broker, on Robert Moses, and the multi-volume The Years of Lyndon Johnson — which together represent the most sustained biographical effort in American letters. Working is his account of the methods, the philosophy, and the purpose behind research most writers could not imagine undertaking. Rather than a conventional narrative memoir, the book is organized as a series of reflections: how he came to biography, how he conducts interviews, how he understands the relationship between a biographer and a subject, and what he believes the work is ultimately for.

Turn Every Page

The methodological core of the book is captured in Caro’s signature instruction: “turn every page.” The phrase means reading every document in an archive rather than sampling, on the conviction that the decisive fact is usually the one a less thorough researcher overlooks. The method Caro describes is extreme by any measure. To understand Lyndon Johnson’s origins, he and his wife Ina moved to the Texas Hill Country and lived there, on the principle that you cannot understand a person without understanding the conditions that shaped them. To document the people around his subjects, he tracked down elderly sources who had never been interviewed, because no previous researcher had thought to find them. Ina, throughout his career, served as his sole research assistant — a partnership without which, Caro is clear, none of the work would exist.

The Breakthroughs

The most valuable sections of Working are Caro’s accounts of specific research breakthroughs — the moments when accumulated documentary labor suddenly revealed something that changed his understanding of his subject. He describes the interview with the woman in the Hill Country who finally told him about Johnson’s relationship with Alice Glass, and the archival work that confirmed the Box 13 fraud beyond any remaining doubt. These episodes are gripping in their own right, but they also function as an implicit argument for the kind of research Caro practices: the truth about powerful people is usually hidden, and finding it requires time, persistence, and a willingness to look where easier researchers will not. The truth, he insists, demands more work than most people are willing to do.

What Biography Is For

The deepest argument of Working is about purpose. Caro is not principally interested in biography as literary entertainment or even as historical record, though his books serve both functions. He is interested in biography as a tool for understanding how power actually operates in democratic societies — how it is accumulated, exercised, and turned against the very people it is nominally meant to serve. This is why the Johnson biography requires as many volumes as it does: the question Caro is answering cannot be answered more briefly, and the scale of the project is a function of the seriousness of the question rather than any failure of compression.

A Slim Book for Devoted Readers

At 240 pages, Working is deliberately slight, and many readers will close it wanting substantially more — it offers tantalizing glimpses of the long-awaited fifth Johnson volume in progress without satisfying the appetite it creates. It is also best appreciated by readers who have already spent time with The Power Broker or at least some of the Johnson volumes, since much of its power comes from recognizing the finished work behind the methods described. But for anyone interested in biography, nonfiction research, or the question of what it actually takes to understand how power works, Working is an unusually candid and valuable document: a great craftsman explaining his craft while the central project of his life remains unfinished.