I was delighted with the new title my agent suggested for my forthcoming book—Fearless: A biography of Edna O'Brien—and I remain fond of its aptness and brevity. But what I hadn't realized is that during the past few years, most books about the lives of individuals have been published with titles that omit the word "biography." There are still some "Life of X" titles, but most provide only a descriptive word or phrase and the name of the subject, or even just the name.
Looking at the lists of newly published books that Biographers International Organization publishes every month, I discovered, for example, that from July 2021 to July 2022, among the hundreds of books listed, only thirty-four have a title that include that word, and fewer than ten were published by leading trade houses.
What accounts for the endangered life of "biography"? Most likely, publishers' consensus that readers have come to think of biographies as boring: too long, too fusty, with too many strings of dull facts. The young editors who have replaced retired industry stalwarts also tend to be interested only in books that speak to today's trends.
I lay the blame for negative views of the necessarily backward-looking genre of biography on social media, which has not only fostered short attention spans but also an overwhelming attention on what is happening right now. Editors have responded with book titles stuffed with adjectives that practically jump up and down to make the case for the gripping, surprising, relevant, even transgressive lives of their subjects. This strategy seems best suited to pop culture figures and for books that don't pretend to be serious treatments of noteworthy lives.
Of course, there are plenty of serious Lives that lack the "biography" title. But the lingering association of that word is with sober, nuanced, investigative, in-depth portraits of a life—for my money, the highest form of the genre.