# How Much Detail Do You Really Want in a Biography? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 29, 2003, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-detail-do-you-really-want-in-a-biography/185071 "2003-06-29T01:47:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-detail-do-you-really-want-in-a-biography/185071/1 "2003-06-29T01:47:15Z")
In [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=193728) thread, “Why would an 85-year-old woman need panty liners?” I said, > [@](#): > > According to a book her daughter wrote, Marlene Dietrich used to use this method to hide her incontinence. (She actually stacked the things when she wore them because one wasn’t absorbant enough.) She was afraid that the maids in hotels might tell the newspapers, and that it might hurt her image. It was better for them to believe she still menstruated at the age of sixty. **Eve** replied: > [@](#): > > And thank you, Maria Riva, for telling us that. I hope there is an afterlife, just so Marlene can bitch-slap that daughter of hers into eternity . . . It got me wondering . . . do you \* want \* to know these kinds of details, or do you think that authors should keep some embarassing details private? Do you think that such details add or detract to your understanding of the subject? In many biographies of Queen Elizabeth I, there is discussion of her menstrual cycles. In her case, this may be important because it showed that she was still capable of producing children if she had married. With another subject, however, would you have found this discussion to be tactless? What do you guys think? Should authors keep some details of the lives of their subjects to be private? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-detail-do-you-really-want-in-a-biography/185071/2 "2003-06-29T02:52:35Z")
I try to make my books neither hatchet jobs nor fan-mag white-washes. I was trained as a magazine and advertising writer, so I cut, cut, cut. If something is not interesting to the reader, or pertinent to the story, I leave it out. If I am 90% through with a book and I find out something awful–my subject was a Nazi! or stomped kitties! or wore navy blue with brown!–I will put it in. That is my _job_ as a biographer, whether I like it or not. But Marlene Dietrich’s pantyliners? What does that add to her story? If I felt that the fact she wanted the maids to believe she still menstruated _was_ important, I might find a delicate way to state it. In this case, however–I’ve read the book–Maria Riva put in every horrible, vile and disgusting thing she could tell (or make up) about her mother because she was writing a portmortem matricide, not a well-balanced “biography.” ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-detail-do-you-really-want-in-a-biography/185071/3 "2003-06-29T05:04:06Z")
I don’t really care one way or another about the level of detail - so long as the can prove that those details came from good research, good sources, and good sense. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-detail-do-you-really-want-in-a-biography/185071/4 "2003-06-29T18:11:56Z")
I like Eve’s approach – if the gossip illuminates something about the subject’s character, it’s of interest – otherwise, leave it out. I’m thinking here of the details of Esther Williams’s marriage to Fernando Lamas – yikes! but – perhaps because it’s provided so un-self-reflectively presented – how much the situtation says about her. I’d vote “no” on Marlene Dietrich’s panty-liners – no insight is associated with that tidbit. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2003, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-detail-do-you-really-want-in-a-biography/185071/5 "2003-06-29T19:26:51Z")
In general, modern biographies are bloated, over-detailed, boring, slow-paced, doorstop exhibitions of writers’ research files. Tell me about what made the person important and interesting. Do not tell me what the person had for breakfast or took in the fourth grade or wore to go the dentist. If it’s important - better, revelatory - leave it in no matter how disgusting or disillusioning. But day-by-day descriptions of a person’s last days are worthless, even besides their prurience.