Not to be missed

Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?: The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music
Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg
2002, Simon & Schuster

Over the years, I've gotten to know my buddy Sean (y'all might have seen him around here) pretty well, I think. I know his personality, his likes and dislikes, his stories and his tastes. And he knows a good bit about me -- enough to know that I probably hadn't gotten around to reading Carter Family biography "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone," and that if he gave it to me for Christmas I would feel compelled to put it right on top of my stack of books waiting to be read.

He was right on both counts, and he obviously knows my tastes pretty well. "Will You Miss Me" is one of the best biographies I've read, period. The fact that it's about the Carter Family is just some very, very sweet icing on the cake. The biography reads like a novel, almost, with characters and circumstances intertwining and human drama moving the story along. Like any good story requires, there's conflict. The struggle of man vs. the elements, man vs. other men, man vs. his woman, man vs. his own vices -- it's all there. And it's all true.

Zwonitzer and Hirshberg let the Carter Family story unfold nice and chronologically, and while they treat their revered subjects respectfully, they also treat them like folks -- which to me is a big part of the book's appeal. The language is plain and folksy, like the Carters themselves. The initial delineation of who's kin to whom goes back several generations and is a little tough to slog through, but later in the book you realize that information is relevant. Echoes of ancestors are heard as the Carters' story progresses, adding depth and dimension.

Also adding depth is the amazing amount of written records kept by the Carter family and friends. The authors draw heavily on such material, gleaning wonderful details and letting humble record-keepers take over the storytelling when they can tell it best. "Will You Miss Me" puts most of the spotlight on A.P., Sara and Maybelle, though earlier and later generations, and other family members and friends, make their appearances. Keeping the focus somewhat narrow helps prevent the book from becoming overwhelming, making the 400 page read relatively light and fast.

By the end of it, you feel like you got to know A.P., Sara and Maybelle a little bit. You get a sense of their personality, their likes and dislikes, their stories and their tastes. That makes you friends, if in this case in an abstract sense. It's what happens when a well-written biography transforms its figures into folks, not just a collection of facts.