“The Lyndon Johnson books by Caro, it’s our Harry Potter”
August 27, 2018 10:46 PM   Subscribe

John Koblin writes the puffiest of puff-pieces for the NYT: “Conan O’Brien’s Unrequited Fanboy Love for Robert Caro”
For years Mr. O’Brien has tried to book the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Power Broker” and the multivolume epic “The Years of Lyndon Johnson.” And for years Mr. Caro has said no.
posted by Going To Maine (17 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
This was great:

In his morbid fantasies, he imagines Mr. Caro appearing on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” where the guests often play games with the host.

I really hope Caro publishes the next book soon, although I have to say that his portrayal of Robert Kennedy in The Passage of Power left me hungering for more. Nobody else writes biography like Caro.
posted by JamesBay at 11:33 PM on August 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


“If there were over-large ears and fake gallbladder scars that we could wear instead of wizard hats while waiting in line to get the book, we would do it.”

“‘Conan’ — You mean it was O’Brien? I thought it was The Barbarian.”


These guys are trolling the NYT
posted by chavenet at 1:45 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


“At a certain point, I have the power to book a lot of people,” Mr. O’Brien said over dinner at Lucques, a Mediterranean-inspired restaurant here. “I’ve been around long enough. There’s a point where you feel like you’ve met everyone. Everyone. And then there’s Robert Caro.”
This is the New York Times-iest paragraph that has ever been New York Times-ed.
posted by octobersurprise at 3:59 AM on August 28, 2018 [9 favorites]


If LBJ were still among the living, I have to believe he'd harbor a special place for Caro — the bunghole, perhaps, or maybe the nutsack.
posted by adamgreenfield at 4:37 AM on August 28, 2018 [7 favorites]


I understand the fandom around this kind of writing and deep dive into history. I've been reading The Path to Power for going on like 5 or 6 years. I have been slowly picking at it and his writing style is very engaging, but it's also very dense so I find I have to break it up and read 10 pages every few months. This is a reminder that I need to pick it up again and read my 10 or 20 pages, it's been a month or so.
posted by Fizz at 5:01 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


I feel like you aren't really meeting LBJ on his own terms if you read Caro anywhere else but on the can.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:09 AM on August 28, 2018 [10 favorites]


I feel like you aren't really meeting LBJ on his own terms if you read Caro anywhere else but on the can.

It would require a serious case of constipation to get through.

I've been listening to the audible version a lot this summer with the windows down in our car with broken AC. The civil rights section caused me no end of anxiety about whether the cars around me had their windows up or not...
posted by the christopher hundreds at 6:32 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


There’s a secret unreleased chapter of The Power Broker that covers Jane Jacobs, which I desperately want to read. I have no idea why it’s never been published.
posted by vogon_poet at 6:35 AM on August 28, 2018 [4 favorites]




There are considerable differences between the men, of course, but the part of The Path to Power about LBJ's first race for public office -- for the House, not the Senate -- keeps coming to mind when I read about what Beto O'Rourke is doing right now in Texas.
posted by chimpsonfilm at 6:55 AM on August 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


There are considerable differences between the men, of course, but the part of The Path to Power about LBJ's first race for public office -- for the House, not the Senate -- keeps coming to mind when I read about what Beto O'Rourke is doing right now in Texas.

Beto specifically cites LBJ when talking about his campaigning style (which is maybe a bad move considering how well Caro documents the fact that LBJ straight up stole his Senate seat with bought votes and paid off county clerks). But what I think he means is his method of covering the entire state and campaigning in every recroom, bbq and fish fry in texas, even in counties that haven't voted Democratic *since* LBJ. Caro paints LBJ as tireless, crisscrossing the entire state, parking on the main street of every town that barely exists, standing up in the back of a truck bed, booming out his stump speech to the 5 farmers wives, the barber and a few goats. It's an old fashioned strategy and if that's what Beto is doing it's probably his best shot.
posted by dis_integration at 7:14 AM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


If LBJ were still among the living, I have to believe he'd harbor a special place for Caro — the bunghole, perhaps, or maybe the nutsack.

I have a friend who comes from a strong Dem family in Forth Worth, and he absolutely loathes Robert Caro. In fact, the only time I've ever experience this normally cheery person slightly peeved is when I post about Caro on Facebook.
posted by JamesBay at 8:24 AM on August 28, 2018


+1 to Conan for his high opinion of Caro.

Seriously, ye political aficionados of Metafilter, read them all right away! You will level up +2 for each book.

But of course the people in this thread are the ones who already know that.
posted by M-x shell at 8:24 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Not much is known besides what I said! I believe both Caro and his wife have acknowledged that they had a number of interesting chapters written for The Power Broker that they had to cut because the book would have been literally physically too large otherwise.

There's at least one about Jane Jacobs, and one about Moses' fight with the Brooklyn Dodgers over a new field that was a big part of why they moved to LA.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:31 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Source here.
posted by vogon_poet at 8:32 AM on August 28, 2018


Oh! That's what that protest scene in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was about!

Everything is connected...
posted by Naberius at 9:01 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


I feel like you aren't really meeting LBJ on his own terms if you read Caro anywhere else but on the can.

Actually, you should force a trembling minion to accompany you to the bathroom and read the book to you while you are on the can.
posted by AdamCSnider at 3:23 PM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


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