S7 Ep. 47: Iris Jamahl Dunkle and Kelly McMasters on Biographical Ethics

Following Elon Musk’s estranged daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson’s accusations of unethical behavior on the part of Musk’s authorized biographer, memoirist Kelly McMasters and biographer Iris Jamahl Dunkle join co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about the ethics of biography. Dunkle, the author of Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb, talks about using archives to restore the history of Babb, the writer whose notes John Steinbeck used to research The Grapes of Wrath, and how women’s lives are often wrongly or incompletely depicted. McMasters, a memoirist whose recent book The Leaving Season: A Memoir portrays many people close to her, talks about the impossibility of writing honestly about her life without including her children, the two people with whom she spends the most time. Dunkle and McMasters discuss Wilson’s accusations against Walter Isaacson, whom she says did not directly contact her for comment for his recent book about her father, although much of his book refers to her life. The group also discusses recent revelations that Alice Munro failed to act when she learned that her second husband had abused her daughter, and how authorized biographies often omit full accounts of the truth. Dunkle and McMasters read from their work.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Iris Jamahl Dunkle

• Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb
• West: Fire: Archive
• Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer
• Finding Lost Voices | Substack

Kelly McMasters

• The Leaving Season: A Memoir
• Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir From and Atomic Town
• This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home
• “The Ethics of Writing Hard Things in Family Memoir,” Literary Hub

Others:

• Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
• “Musk’s Daughter Flames Dad’s Biographer: ‘You Threw Me to the Wolves’” by Dan Ladden-Hall | Daily Beast
• J.D. Salinger
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• “What do we Know about Alice Munro Now?” by Contance Grady | Vox
• La Belle Noiseuse
• The Hyacinth Girl: T.S. Eliot’s Hidden Muse by Lyndall Gordon
• Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation by Emily Van Duyne
• Jackson Pollock
• “What Virginia Woolf’s ‘Dreadnought Hoax’ Tells Us About Ourselves” by Danell Jones | January 25, 2024 | Literary Hub
• Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6 Episode 19: “The Lives of the Wives: Carmela Ciuraru on Marriage, Writing, and Equity”

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