The Rabbi

Hamilton writes a manual for future biographers which reads like a romance or adventure novel. I could not put his 346 pgs down reading through each progressive chapter laced with carefully chosen examples from biographies that worked and several that didn't.

After locating biography between history and novel, he sets forth the biographers method; the time commitment challenges, all that research, writing, painful editing (by others hurts the most), and then waiting for the reviews--5 to 10 years easily passes. He distinguishes biographies by their focus not on the major events, accomplishments of a significant player's life, but the tragedies, loves, feelings, and relationships that define anyone as an individual. How one negotiates life's harsh, daily demands describes who they are, not those highly visible events when one occupies center stage.

Hamilton next arranges chapters to represent life stages of the subject chosen to biograph. I almost visualized a biographee as her/his life unfolded in Hamilton's excursion through the seven stages of life, the compilation of which mature the subject for his readers.

Since buried in the recesses of my mine, I envision that someday I will write an (auto)biography of Jeremiah, Hamilton's work impressed the difficulties and rewards of such an endeavor. A good read for an aspiring writer.