Doris Duke, most likely taken at Duke Farms, 1920-1930 (Doris Duke Photograph Collection, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University)
Robert Carol in his memoir, Working, following his writing of his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson, said the same thing. He loved files, and with the help of his wife he went through years—and hundreds—of them.
For me, too, there is nothing like opening a file box, with some unknown’s penciled label at the top, and diving into an absolutely unpredictable collection of letters, notes, interviews—anything Doris Duke, in my case, decided to save.
I imagine her sitting up in bed in the morning at Shangri La in Hawaii, or Rough Point in Newport, or Duke Farms in New Jersey, her breakfast tray beside her and a dog or two lying next to the tray—and opening her mail, probably rather hurriedly. Even in those days fifty or more years ago, the mail was never very exciting, except perhaps when she had a letter from an old friend or a lover.
Once the letters were open, she probably scooped them up and threw them on a nearby chair, instructing her secretary to take them away and file them.
Of course, she didn’t keep all of them. I was astonished when I first began to read her 800 linear feet of files because I found that, in addition to letters from enthralled lovers and devoted friends, she’d taken care to include negative accounts: the man in Cairo who loved her and was bitterly disappointed when she disappeared, the jealous wife who threatened to hire a private plane and fly after her when Doris (apparently) flirted with this woman’s husband.
To me, the objectivity—at least partial—with which she assembled her collection, covering most of the years of her adult life, proved that I could use this collection as the base of my just-published biography, The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke (including plenty of photographs from the archive). I didn’t need interviews with more or less unreliable witnesses, all of whom had been interviewed before. I didn’t need other accounts, based largely on hearsay, scandal, rumor and the assumptions that always pursue a well-known woman.
I just needed all those files, and I’m very grateful they weren’t yet digitized. That’s a convenient method that destroys a lot of authenticity, the authenticity that is only found in paper and handwriting.
The collection surprised me.
Most human beings are tempted to keep only records of the good times, as Doris did when she kept letters from servicemen who’d known her in Cairo during her posting there in the last days of World War 2.
But she also kept letters that cast shadows and raised questions, and of course these were of great interest to me. Angry, abusive letters from staff she’d fired, for good or bad reasons. Reasonably sober but distressed-sounding letters from financial advisors who didn’t believe in her wisdom about money.
What an amazing trove! And that’s what I used.
And so I’m singing the praise of archives—big, unruly archives—usually kept in a precious library like the Rubenstein Library at Duke University, where I found Doris’ collection.
But also, crucially, collections are also kept in boxes and attics and closets, like the letters I used for my last memoir, The Blue Box: Three Lives in Letters.
Those letters, covering 1850-1933, from my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, might well have been thrown out after my mother died. Fortunately for all of us, my family members are careful and considerate of the past, and of its records.
And so now that I’ve finished my research and my biography is published, the originals of all those files are back where they belong, at the Rubenstein Library at Duke University in Durham, and the endless copies I made (in those days, it was still possible to make copies in the library) will go, eventually, to the shredder…
As soon as I can bear to do it.
A reading and discussion with Garcia Street Books, here in Santa Fe, has just been released on Soundcloud. You can listen to it here. For more audio, including a discussion on The Silver Swan and a longer discussion on Doris Duke’s Legacy, please visit my Soundcloud page. You can download the audio from those discussions to listen anywhere. Video and transcripts of those discussions are also available in the video section here on my site.
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