Biographer T.J. Stiles

I've been neglectful of late, when it comes to updating this blog. I do have a defense: I've been on the road, both for business and pleasure. In fact, this last Monday I returned home to San Francisco after two weeks away, a trip that began with the Pulitzer ceremony at Columbia University in New York.

As I've mentioned before, the Pulitzer and National Book Award really have filled me with a renewed sense of humility. I'm in daunting company. And, as I often say, I don't kid myself that I was the only possible choice—far from it. But it's also really a wonderful thing, especially because it's a kind of ratification of my highest hopes for this book: that it would be a work of literature, in some way, as well as scholarship.

The irony, of course, is that the Commodore loathed writing. It has been suggested to me that he was dyslexic, which is quite possible, if impossible to properly diagnose over this span of time. He read well enough, and could write (though he spelled phonetically). Still, he didn't like to write, as he admitted in one letter. He pitched letters that he received into the fire after he read them, and left no collection of papers behind.

Lucky for me that he left a far larger paper trail behind than previous historians and biographers had suspected. Though it didn't seem so lucky when I was five years into the project, with still no end in sight...

Thursday, May 27, 2010, is the 216th birthday of Commodore Vanderbilt. With a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize on my shelf, I can only wish him a happy birthday.

Not that he was an easy man to like. Vanderbilt fought his way from near the very bottom to the absolute top (in fact, you could say he invented a new top), and he was nothing if not fierce. He embodied profound conundrums for the American republic, as he both created enormous wealth for his fellow countrymen and pioneered a severely polarized society, amassing power never before seen in private hands.

Yet let's give him due credit: He was truly self-made, earned his pride in himself, and, if ruthless, was also honest, and promoted the interests of the stockholders of his corporations as did no other chief executive of his day (or perhaps ours). As a biographer, it's my duty to follow a balanced approach to my subject, rather than preach a message, using my subject as a mere vehicle for preconceived views. Vanderbilt has suffered far too much of the latter over the decades.

I have another reason to wish the Commodore well. I suspect that his ghost tried to put a stop to my biography early on. In October 2003, when I had been at work on The First Tycoon for a year already, I was a passenger on the Staten Island Ferry boat Andrew Barberi when it crashed.

Let me stress, though, that I don't mean to make light of that event. Eleven people tragically died, amid horror that I was unaware of as I rode on the upper deck, where none were harmed.

They don't allow you to dedicate Pulitzer Prizes, the way you do books. So let me just say, on the 216th anniversary of the Commodore's birth, that I'm honoring the people who didn't make it across New York harbor on that windy day in 2003.

The National Book Foundation announced that my new book, The First Tycoon, is a finalist for the National Book Award.

I'm flabbergasted—overjoyed, stunned, and humbled all at once. Yes, humbled, corny as that sounds. I'll be honest: I try my best to write at a level that would merit this kind of recognition, so this honor is a dream come true. But I really do believe in publishing a book with all humility, and this only drives that point home. There are hundreds of fine nonfiction books being published this year, and dozens that merit serious consideration for a national prize. Being singled out is a gift, plain and simple.