Five Books on the Moodboard for My Biography of Elaine May

I’ve yet to read a bad Sam Wasson book, but his definitive chronicle of the history of modern American comedy is an essential must-read. Wasson’s prose captures the same zealous energy as truly great comedy: crackling and dynamic, fast-paced and whip-smart, and deeply, deeply entertaining.

To understand modern entertainment—from comedy to theater to film—as well as to really understand Elaine May, you have to know Mike Nichols. Harris’s thorough and engaging biography of the director—and former comedy partner to May—paints a picture of a true twentieth century icon.

Lili Anolik’s biography of Eve Babitz—L.A. it-girl and Joan Didion contemporary who, until a recent renaissance, was left behind in obscurity and reclusiveness—is a magic trick. It’s a portrait of an artist, a specific time and place in American history, and an intimate memoir-detective story about an author willing to go to great lengths to track Babitz down and tell her story. Simply devourable.

Sure, Streisand’s tome is chatty and intimate and far more honest than anything Elaine May would ever produce. But it also expresses, in great detail, the trials and triumphs of being an incredibly talented polymath—and female director—in the same era as May. Streisand’s recollections of how often she was underestimated, and how much she had to prove herself over and over again, even after she had immense power, are telling. If even she was doubted, how were other women trying to make it in Hollywood’s boy’s club treated?

Janet Malcolm’s examination of the craft of biography writing and the ways in which a subject (or those close to them) can shape and twist their own narrative is brilliant and thought-provoking. How much, really, can we know about a person by reading a book about them? How should we weigh whether or not a biography is authorized? How much can we trust a source? Reading it while writing Miss May reshaped my thinking around access, truth, and who really controls a story.