Works in progress: Jonathan Eig

Martin Luther King Jr, by Joseph Stein (National Portrait Gallery)

     If I had to point to the most significant writer in Chicago today, it would have to be Jonathan Eig. His books send ripples across the country and world. The highest compliment I can pay is that his books are enjoyable even when I have no interest in the subject, such as Al Capone ("Get Capone") who normally I can't cringe away from fast enough, or Lou Gehrig ("Luckiest Man"). His book on G.D. Searle developing Enovid ("The Birth of the Pill") is an unexpected journey through the struggle of women to control their reproductive health, and his most recent book on Muhammad Ali ("Ali: A Life") was a key contribution to scholarship on the most important athlete of the 20th century.

     Next month, he offers an even more ambitious biography, "King: A Life." It reads like a novel, in that I could not put it down, being treated with an unending stream of fascinating details and character studies. The New York Times called it "monumental," though that is completely backwards: the book isn't an enormous edifice, but something far better: it's fine-detailed and human.  EGD asked Eig to pull the curtain back a bit on the process, and he kindly obliged. Take it away, Jonathan: 

     I remember the moment I told my kids I wanted to write a biography of Martin Luther King Jr. We were eating dinner. The girls were 13 and seven, an eighth grader and a second grader. They both firmly opposed the idea. King was boring, they said. Luckily, I didn’t listen to them. Today, those kids are 19 and 13, a college sophomore and an eighth grader. And the book is done. It publishes May 16.  

     I sometimes wonder who’s learned more in the past six years, me, or my kids? Thanks, CPS!
     I know I’ve learned a lot. I got to meet King’s close childhood friends, his Montgomery barber, his Dexter Baptist Church organist, and the list goes on. I hung out with Harry Belafonte, Dick Gregory, Jesse Jackson, and John Lewis. I even managed to get Mavis Staples to sing to me over the phone.
     I often look back and think about all the questions I didn’t ask in my career. I met Dizzy Gillespie and never asked him about Charlie Parker. I met Phil Rizzuto and didn’t ask him about Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, or Mickey Mantle. You might reasonably ask at this point what the hell I did ask them, but let’s not go there…because, for once, I got it right. I recognized that I had the chance to interview dozens of people who knew Martin Luther King Jr. – that I might be the last biographer with the opportunity – and I jumped at it.
     So, what did I learn? You’ll have to read the book (please!) to get the full picture. I learned King chewed his fingernails. I learned he had a dog named Topsy. I learned he suffered so much from depression that he had to be hospitalized several times. I learned the FBI’s assault on King was much crueler than I had known, and that Lyndon Johnson deserves a heavy portion of the blame. I could go on.
     But the biggest thing I learned, probably, is that the man had more courage than I ever could have imagined. He dared to believe he could follow the call to serve God and that a divided nation and a violent world might be repaired, that we might finally get past our racism, our materialism, and our militarism. He believed people might be united, that humanity might make genuine spiritual progress. And he was willing to risk his life to prove it.
     I know I’m getting a little emotional here. But King does that to me. Even now, after six years.
     If you read the book, I hope you’ll see why.
     Maybe my kids will overcome their skepticism some day and read it, too.