NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 Robert A. Caro and his editor, Robert Gottlieb, know each other so well.
After a half-century together, the pair have lived in each other鈥檚 minds for so long that they can anticipate what the other will say. Their collaborations on such epics and the series have and helped confirm Gottlieb 鈥 whose roster has included , and 鈥 as one of publishing鈥檚 most accomplished editors.
But the two Bobs 鈥 the subjects of a new documentary, made by the editor鈥檚 daughter Lizzie Gottlieb 鈥 are also known for how they diverge.
Caro, from his office on Manhattan鈥檚 Upper West Side, and Gottlieb, speaking by phone from his home on the island鈥檚 other side, shared contrasting memories on personal and editorial matters during recent interviews with The Associated Press.
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Whether Gottlieb has ever praised Caro:
Caro: 鈥淚 can honestly say that no such remarks have been made to me. The only remark that ever fell anywhere near that category is when we finished editing 鈥楳eans of Ascent鈥 (his second Lyndon Johnson book). We worked on it all summer. And we were cutting it for some New Yorker excerpts and I think he said, 鈥楴ot bad.鈥欌
鈥淗e likes to believe that,鈥 Gottlieb, who in the film called Caro a genius, responds. 鈥淚 can't imagine working with someone that long without at least saying, 鈥楬ey, pretty good.鈥欌
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On semicolons:
Caro: "He thinks I use too many semicolons. That sounds small. It's not small in our editing process."
Gottlieb: 鈥淚 don't believe that's so. He is more focused on this than I am.鈥
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Whether Caro cares more than Gottlieb does about sentence rhythms:
Caro: "He doesn't believe it's as important as I do."
Gottlieb: 鈥淚t's in his head, not mine.鈥
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They do agree on their happiness with the documentary releasing Dec. 30 and their regard for Lizzie Gottlieb, who thought of the film after seeing Caro present her father with an award in 2014. Lizzie Gottlieb, who also made 鈥淭oday's Man鈥 about her brother, approached the two men separately and was initially turned down by both. Robert Gottlieb came around within weeks; Caro, months later, impressed by her willingness to keep asking.
鈥淪he reminds me of me,鈥 Caro, for Newsday, says. 鈥淪he won't quit and that's a big reason I agreed to it.鈥
Caro and Gottlieb may differ on details but the record is otherwise laid out clearly in 鈥淭urn Every Page,鈥 the title on approaching research.
Caro and Gottlieb first met in the early 1970s, when Caro was struggling to find a publisher for his first book: 鈥淭he Power Broker,鈥 a biography of New York urban planner Robert Moses. He was broke, had sold his home on Long Island and was living in presumed obscurity with his family in a Bronx apartment. Gottlieb, meanwhile, was head of Alfred A. Knopf.
In what he calls the week that changed his life, Caro found both the agent and editor who remain with him now. He spoke with who assured him that his work was well known around town and that, with a phone call, she could solve his money problems. Nesbit recommended a handful of editors, Gottlieb among them.
鈥淗e had interesting things to say about 鈥楾he Power Broker,'鈥 Caro recalls. 鈥淚 didn't agree with a lot of the things he was saying, but he was speaking at a level, analyzing the book at a level that other editors weren't.鈥
Their longevity is miraculous if only because 鈥淭he Power Broker鈥 might have ended even the closest of partnerships. Caro's original draft ran more than 1 million words and had to be narrowed to around 700,000 鈥 equivalent to a couple of books in its own right 鈥 just to make a single volume physically possible. Their arguments were long and angry, sometimes ending with one of them 鈥渟talking out of the room,鈥 Caro recalls. But the finished text, released in 1974 and running more than 1,200 pages, was a Pulitzer Prize winner now widely regarded as a classic of city governance, urban planning and the realities of politics.
Author and editor had only begun. Caro had been under contract to write a book on former New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, but feared repeating material from his Moses research. He looked instead to a leader who would fit his ambition to document the uses and effects of political power on a national scale: Lyndon Johnson. Gottlieb had similar thoughts, and remembered the two bringing up the late president (who died in 1973) at the same time during a meeting.
A planned three-volume series has expanded to five, with the end date still undetermined a decade after the fourth book, 鈥淭he Passage of Power,鈥 was released. Caro, who is says he is not close to finishing.
He praises Gottlieb for accepting, without hesitation, the ever-growing scale of his work. He and Gottlieb long ago forged an unspoken agreement that Gottlieb never asks when the manuscript is coming, and Caro shows him nothing until he has a finished draft.
鈥淚 get so much mail, all with the same question: 鈥榃hen is Volume 5 going to be finished?鈥" Caro says. 鈥淭hat you feel really good about, because it's encouraging. But some then say, 鈥楧o you know how old you are?鈥欌
The two Bobs were in their 40s when the Johnson project began. Caro is now 87, Gottlieb 91.
鈥淏ob and I don't sit around and talk about it,鈥 Gottlieb says. 鈥淲e know how the clock ticks.鈥
The banter between Caro and Gottlieb at times seems fraternal. They are both 鈥渘ice little Jewish boys from Manhattan,鈥 Gottlieb observes, bookish children who went on to Ivy League colleges (Gottlieb studied at Columbia, Caro at Princeton) and the very heights of achievement. Both are well spoken, confident in their abilities and what they're after. Both have even been known to wear horn-rimmed glasses.
They have just enough in common for their differences to matter.
For decades, the two never socialized. Lizzie Gottlieb came to know Heller, Lessing and some of her father's other authors well, but says she had never met Caro until he turned 80. Time, and 鈥淭urn Every Page,鈥 helped bring them closer. When Gottlieb is asked if he now thinks of Caro as a friend, he quickly answers yes. Caro's response is a work in progress, as if issued in succeeding volumes.
鈥淲ell, it's gotten a lot friendlier," he initially responds. 鈥淚 certainly didn't think of him as a friend when we were doing 鈥楾he Power Broker鈥 or the first volume of (the Lyndon Johnson series). I'm not the kind of person who thinks of my editor as a friend."
But are they friends now?
鈥淣ow we have lunches together. I love to talk about books with him,鈥 Caro says.
So they're friends?
鈥淲e're friendly, but he's still my editor.鈥
He then explains how they don't fight often anymore, that revisions work far more smoothly and quickly than years ago.
鈥淭hings have evolved,鈥 he concludes. 鈥淎re we friends now? Yes.鈥
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In this story originally published Dec. 20, 2022, The Associated Press erroneously reported that 鈥淢eans of Ascent鈥 was his first book about Lyndon B. Johnson. It was his second.
