An Update, and Another Project
The Koop Biography will be out Next Year
I’m not sure whether to apologise that what I had expected to be a regular column - about my biography of Dr. Koop, and related matters - has turned out to be not regular at all. The upside, of course, for my readers, is that there is much they have not had to read. Over the past eighteen months I have been increasingly preoccupied with finishing my work on Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General (we finally have a final title, agreeable both to writer and publisher), and time as well as creative juices have been at quite a premium. I have not been seeking to emulate my subject - even quite late in life Koop used to be up at 4.30 in the morning, for prayer and coffee and work - but for many months as I worked on finalizing the manuscript that was my regimen too.
I’m happy to report that the MS has passed its final round of reviews, and is in the production process with U Mass Press. Of course, university presses operate on glacial time-scales, partly as a result of the academic reviewing process. But here’s a very nice quote from one reviewer that I can share:
In this lively and comprehensive biography, Nigel Cameron traces the life and work of one of the late twentieth century’s most riveting figures. The portrait of C. Everett Koop that emerges in these pages is that of a deeply religious man and principled contrarian whose prodigious accomplishments—as a pediatric surgeon, public health official, prolife and anti-tobacco crusader, advocate for the victims of AIDS, and health reformer—were matched (and likely driven) by his monumental ego. This thoroughly researched and textured account will be the definitive biography for decades to come.
The task now is to sell the book, and in the process remind those who have forgotten, and inform those who never knew, about, well, “one of the late twentieth century’s most riveting figures”! It’s not yet available for pre-order, but be assured that I shall let you know when it is. I’m encouraging those who have institutional responsibilities or edit things to begin planning for Koop-related events and publications in the fall of 2025, as the book will be out by then.
Meanwhile, I have something else on my mind. During my Koop research I learned a lot about Donald Grey Barnhouse, the presbyterian minister in Philadelphia who had a profound impact on the young Koop back in the late 1940s and during the 50s. Barnhouse was a remarkable figure, said to have spoken in person to more Americans than any religious leader before Billy Graham. He was the first preacher to buy time on network radio - as far back in 1928. Barnhouse much deserves his own biography - in my research I came across no fewer than five efforts or suggestions for one, but sadly they all got nowhere. It’s likely too late to write one now, but I am thinking of an academic essay looking back on his life. The same is true of the other huge influence on the young Koop, I. S. Ravdin, America’s leading surgeon back in the 50s (he operated on Eisenhower!) and the man who gave Koop his career in pediatric surgery. I’ve proposed an essay on Rav, as everyone knew him, for the Journal of Medical Biography. Two fascinating spin-offs from my Koop research. These three men all had huge egos, and Koop constantly clashed with them both. As he readily acknowledged, he owed them both immeasurable debts.
DGB, as many called him, or Barney, as Koop sometimes did, and his wife Ruth, had a remarkable family. Their children were chiefly home-schooled by their maternal grandmother. One son graduated from Harvard in physics at the age of 17. The elder daughter, Ruth, was accepted into Vassar at 14, though she did not attend until two years later. She was plainly as headstrong as her dad. At 17, she eloped with a medical student! Two divorces, and seven children, later, she had qualified as a physician, become one of the first women priests of the Episcopal Church, and a professor of theology, and she then attained a certain celebrity as the psychiatrist of poet Sylvia Plath, whose suicide in 1963 remains a waymark in the history of 20th century literature. Plath scholarship has lately been boosted, a half-century after her death, by the release of new materials, including a series of letters she exchanged with Ruth.
Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse, as she preferred to style herself after her divorce from William Beuscher, is someone else who could do with a biography, and I have decided to step up to the plate, having confirmed with a leading Plath scholar that no-one else is working on her life. There are one or two good articles about and interviews with Ruth, mostly focused of course on her connection with Plath, but that is all. I find this surprising, given the importance she had for the poet - from the time of her first suicide attempt (while she was in college) onward. Ruth features in The Bell Jar, Plath’s famous and highly autobiographical novel, as “Doctor Nolan.” I’ll make a final decision to look for a publisher after spending some days with her archives, which are hosted side-by-side with Plath’s at Smith College.
So, this is less of an essay and more of an update. But I’m planning to write something more substantive shortly, about biography - having been bitten by the bug. On why life-writing matters.