Local author releases timely bio of Joe Biden

By Christy Nadalin
Posted 1/24/21

Author Beatrice Gormley has lived in Westport for two decades, "So I'm new here," she jokes. The California native has found the South Coast to be fertile ground for her creative pursuits. She has …

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Local author releases timely bio of Joe Biden

Posted

Author Beatrice Gormley has lived in Westport for two decades, "So I'm new here," she jokes. The California native has found the South Coast to be fertile ground for her creative pursuits. She has published about a book a year, and has for many years, with some 35 titles to her name. She favors biographies, and her latest, released just last week, is a particularly timely one: Joe Biden, Our 46th President.

"I've always loved biographies," she said in a call from her home on the day of the title's release. "When I was young I would go to the library and get a big stack of them. This all came back to me when my kids were that age." It was around that time she started writing for the young adult market — and her career took off.

She's worked with a number of publishers, most recently for Simon & Schuster's Alladin House imprint, which asked her to work on a book about Biden at the beginning of the campaign — well before it was evident that he would be the candidate. After the earliest primaries, when it looked as though Biden had reached the end of the line, Ms. Gormley was concerned that she may have done a lot of research to no avail. But then, as we know, he staged a comeback. "He's a great subject,: she said. "His life makes a great story."

Just days after the attack on the Capitol, like so many Americans, Ms. Gormley was worried about the inauguration and the days ahead. Given her professional focus in recent months, the events at the Capitol felt very close to home. "Every time I write a biography, I really feel like I am getting to know the subject, and even make friends with them," she said. "Biden is such a likable person. He's had a longtime ambition to be president and he started trying pretty early in his career, without much encouragement. But he kept persevering, believing he could bring something unique to that job. I think he has a lot of qualities that will help him govern justly, and I think he's the only one who could have beaten Trump."

To get that deeply into the character of another person takes a great deal of research — made a bit easier when a subject like Biden has written a couple of memoirs of his own. "He left out a couple of discouraging details but he is very frank about most of his life," said Ms. Gormley.

Ms. Gormley says she decided to become a writer at age 9, "but it took me a long time to figure out how to make my dream come true." Growing up in Southern California, she graduated from Pomona College, and then went to work for a book publisher. She met her husband, Robert Gormley, at that job, they had two children, and eventually moved to the east coast.

It was in Massachusetts, while raising school-age children, where her writing career took off. From there, she followed her interests, writing about topics as varied as flying (Mail-Order Wings), ancient Israel (Adara), and the Roman Empire (Salome and Poisoned Honey). Her extensive list of biographical subjects include Amelia Earhart, Julius Caesar, Pope Francis, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, John McCain, and, perhaps her favorite, Maria Mitchell. "Mitchell was America's first woman astronomer. She was so ahead of her time, and passionate about her calling — she inspired other women to do something with their lives at a time when women were thought to be incapable of math."
 She has also really enjoyed doing political biographies, and her publishers have on more than one election cycle, asked her to write two, with the winner getting released upon their election, and the loser getting mothballed. She did that with the Bush v. Gore contest in 2000, and recalls the month of waiting to see which candidate — and book — would come out on top.

"That was the strangest election, until this one, anyway," she said. This one, at least, won't involve a waiting game, as Ms. Gormley declined the opportunity to take a deep dive into Trump. She also wrote dueling bios for the 2008 contest between Obama and McCain, and her McCain project finally saw light when he came back into the spotlight at the end of his life, largely due to his public opposition to Trump and his policies.

This prolific writer will soon move on to her next project, but today she is enjoying life in Westport, the hours-old news that the audio rights to the Biden bio have been sold, and the satisfaction of another job well done.

I'm really lucky," she said.

Beatrice Gormley, Joe Biden

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