CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 6:51
Lyndon Johnson's Father and the Origins of His Vote Counting
David Senra opens by reading Caro's account of how Sam Johnson's overpriced ranch and failure shaped young Lyndon, who worked a fresno behind mules. Caro argues this taught Johnson the cost of optimism and made him a legendary vote counter and a ruthless winner.
- •Sam Johnson overpaid for a worn-out ranch, went broke, and became a laughingstock
- •Lyndon's brother Sam said the most important thing for Lyndon was not to be like Daddy
- •Johnson raged at staffers who said they 'thought' a senator would vote a certain way
- •Scoop Jackson contrasted Kennedy's understanding with Johnson's refusal to take no for an answer
- •Caro says Johnson's ruthlessness is largely explained by the place he came from
- 6:51 – 10:49
Introducing Working and Why Caro Slows Down
Senra explains why he picked Working now, prompted by the documentary Turn Every Page, and reads the introduction. Caro says the book is about his work and his life, and about discovering a level of power and ruthlessness he had never conceived. Senra connects this to Steve Jobs's line 'I am a reflection of what I do.'
- •Senra chose the book after watching the Turn Every Page documentary
- •Caro says his books are his life
- •Caro learned from Robert Moses that he knew nothing about real political power
- •Senra says Caro's real aim is to explain how power works, not just to write biographies
- •Eight-to-ten-year gaps between books, with the final volume still pending
- 10:49 – 17:47
Thinking With Your Fingers: Deliberate Slowness and No Choice
Caro recalls his Princeton professor telling him he thought with his fingers, so he started writing first drafts in longhand to slow down. Senra stresses that the research takes so long because of something in Caro he cannot override, and he reads the East Tremont chapter example showing Caro had no choice but to do the work fully.
- •Professor Blackmer warned Caro against thinking with his fingers
- •Caro writes first drafts in longhand to force himself to think things through
- •Research, not writing, is what takes the time
- •Deadlines and being broke could not overcome this force in him
- •He accepts it: the book taking a couple of years longer was 'so what'
- 17:47 – 21:41
Caro's Childhood and the Newsday Maxim: Turn Every Page
Senra draws on his notes from the documentary about Caro's difficult childhood and compares it to Johnson's. He then reads how Alan Hathaway at Newsday, after Caro spent a night in government files, told him to turn every page.
- •Caro escaped home to the library and read in Central Park after his mother's illness and death
- •Senra links both Caro's and Johnson's greatest talents to dysfunctional relationships with their fathers
- •Hathaway hired Caro as a joke because of his Princeton degree
- •Caro felt at home going through files all night
- •Hathaway's advice became his motto: never assume anything, turn every page
- 21:41 – 25:47
Robert Moses's Power and the Decision to Write The Power Broker
Caro describes watching Robert Moses reverse officials on a bridge overnight and realizing everything he had been doing was bullshit. At Harvard on a Nieman fellowship he rejected his professors' academic account of highway building and resolved to explain where Moses got his power.
- •Officials in Albany flipped from against to for the bridge after Moses visited
- •Caro realized he had no idea where Moses got his power
- •Newspaper deadlines left him no time to think until the Nieman fellowship
- •Professors explained highway locations with equations, but Caro knew Moses decided
- •He took a small contract with a $2,500 advance
- 25:47 – 31:54
Running Out of Money and Finding the Right Partners
Caro expected to finish in nine months but spent years broke, and his editor told him to expect a small printing. Senra rails against that prediction, then reads how a new agent, Lynn Nesbit, solved his money worry and led him to Bob Gottlieb as editor.
- •A one-year Carnegie Fellowship ran out and money was a problem for four more years
- •His editor refused to release the rest of the advance, expecting few readers
- •Senra notes The Power Broker later went through dozens of printings
- •Nesbit said she could get the money by picking up the phone
- •Gottlieb offered a sandwich at his desk where others offered fancy lunches
- 31:54 – 35:24
Moses's Ruthlessness, Genius, and Savage Energy
Senra turns to stories from the Moses chapters, including how Moses used a farm mortgage and his 'bloodhounds' to flip votes. Caro portrays Moses as a ruthless genius with savage energy, and Senra notes Caro shares that ruthlessness.
- •Moses remembered votes from decades earlier and why they were cast
- •He found a legislator's weakness, a farm mortgage, and had pressure applied
- •His investigators compiled dossiers leaked to newspapers against opponents
- •Caro describes his savage energy, such as hurling inkwells and pounding walls
- 35:24 – 40:34
Isolation, Doubt, and Finding Fellow Writers in the Allen Room
Senra pairs Paul Graham's point that ambitious people need ambitious peers with Caro's five years of isolation and doubt. In the Frederick Lewis Allen Room, other biographers told him that long timelines were normal, wiping away years of doubt.
- •Graham says ambitious people bloom around other ambitious people
- •Caro lived five years with no contact with another serious book writer
- •Money ran out and he sold his house
- •Writers in the Allen Room had worked seven and nine years on their own books
- •Daily lunches with fellow craftsmen eased his doubt
- 40:34 – 43:25
Mining the LBJ Library and Moving to the Hill Country
Senra describes Caro applying turn every page to the LBJ Library, finding unexpected diamonds in files that looked useless. Because he felt he couldn't understand Johnson without understanding the Hill Country, Caro moved there with his wife Ina for about three years.
- •The reward for great work is more work, a line Senra quotes from Kevin Kelly
- •Files that seemed irrelevant repeatedly yielded valuable material
- •Caro read files almost certainly unread by others
- •He felt he did not understand the people of the Hill Country and moved there
- •Ina's response was 'Sure'
- 43:25 – 46:55
Sam Houston Johnson and the Father-Son Parallel
Caro reads how he interviewed Lyndon's brother Sam Houston, who recreated the dinnertime fights between Lyndon and their father and admitted the wonderful boyhood stories never happened. Senra says Caro and Johnson share a childhood marked by a harsh father and a drive born of escaping pain.
- •Sam Houston Johnson recreated his father calling Lyndon a failure
- •Asked for happy boyhood stories, Sam Houston said they never happened
- •Senra says Caro's and Johnson's youths were similarly marked by shouting fathers
- •Senra argues Caro had to turn every page just as Johnson had to count every vote
- 46:55 – 50:42
Compulsion and Negative Self-Talk in Caro and Johnson
Caro describes the part of him that always thinks of new questions and avenues of research, which he says he had no choice about. Senra shows Johnson shared the work ethic and harsh self-talk, as Johnson's chauffeur described him berating himself in the back seat.
- •Caro kept telling himself 'you schmuck' even when he had enough details
- •He says he had no alternatives in how he worked
- •Johnson's chauffeur reported him criticizing himself after campaign stops
- •Johnson rehearsed aloud what he would tell voters next time
- 50:42 – 54:33
Running Up Capitol Hill: Johnson's Desperation to Escape Poverty
Senra closes with his favorite story in the book, about Johnson at 23 arriving in Washington poor, with one thin coat. Caro describes how Estelle Harbin saw him running up Capitol Hill every morning, the contrast between his poverty and the marble of the Capitol. Senra closes with a plug for the book link and the premium feed.
- •Johnson arrived in Washington in 1931 with a cardboard suitcase and one thin coat
- •Estelle Harbin called him the best congressional assistant there ever was
- •He lived in a basement of a shabby hotel and turned a corner to see the gleaming Capitol
- •He ran to work every morning, even once the weather turned warm
