Biography

It’s a coincidence that I’m reading a lot of biographies at a time when I’ve just written my first biography, and I’m discussing my second. In my effort to reduce time wasted on screens, I’ve made the bathroom my biography zone. Biographies because I find that once I connect with the subject, once I’m there in this person’s life, it becomes compulsive reading, so even with only 2 minutes to sit and do the job, I’ll take out two pages.

I hadn’t given the nature of a biography much thought before, and then, suffering that strange ‘break-up’ sensation of having to part ways with characters in a book before I’m ready to do so – in this case football manager Brian Clough – the author, Duncan Hamilton, writes something beautiful about this. Referring to Clough’s obituaries after his passing in 2004, he offers:

Each story, different in its own way, underlined for me one thing: that there is no absolute truth in biography, only judgement. Every subject is posed, cropped, and framed, as if in a series of photographs that capture a lifetime of distinct, frozen moments. As a biographer, you produce a piece of work that honestly and accurately reflects what you witnessed, were told, felt, or discovered about the subject. You try to join the diverse dots of life, creating a picture that takes into account the interpretation and the assessment of others who saw things from a variety of perspectives. And you can only ever contribute to an understanding of the person concerned. You can’t be definitive.

The Reason You’re Doing It, Héctor Ayuso’s story was by no means a traditional biography. I have no interest in writing that way. After all, there are 1000s of better biographers if we’re thinking standard form. We set out to make a piece of art. A vicious, tender, and inspiring mood piece that bared Héctor’s soul while peaking intrigue and leaving space for the interpretation and imagination of the reader. Duncan’s words filled me with joy because he’s described exactly what I realise, with hindsight, I was trying to do, other than making art. It is what I’ll continue to do and I’m excited to see where, and through who’s life, it leads me.