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Admired by voters, rebuked by his party, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has ruled Canada with a mix of populism and pragmatism. Author and journalist Lawrence Martin has written the second volume of his biography of Jean Chrétien, Iron Man: The Defiant Reign of Jean Chrétien. In this special feature, he explains the difficulties in writing an up-to-the-minute book, keeping to deadlines, and staying true to his promises.
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Writing a biography while the subject of the biography is still in office presents a wonderland of complications, especially when you are writing a newspaper column as well.
Politicians have short memories. They recall the last one or two things you wrote about them, and they react to you accordingly. If you have recently been positive, all is well—even if you trashed the person in a dozen articles before that. In writing Iron Man, I was trying to get access to as many Liberals as possible. Every time I thought about approaching someone, I had to check the memory bank and figure out where I stood. |
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Jean Chrétien posed a special problem. He had given me a couple of interviews for my first volume of his biography, The Will to Win. We were on decent, if not good, terms for quite a while. Then he became embroiled in conflict-of-interest allegations, and as a columnist, first for Southam News, then The Globe and Mail, I was writing about them. Doors began to shut.
It looked for a lengthy period that there would be no interview for book two with the prime minister. I found out that a big debate in his office on this subject was ongoing, half lining up one way, half the other. I kept telling his people, "Listen, it stands to reason that if a big book is being written about you, you're going to benefit from getting your own points of view across. You don't want to leave it to others." This didn't appear to be working. Come June 2003, when I handed in the manuscript, the answer from the PM was still "No."
Then at the end of the month, less than four months before the book was due out on the shelves, the call came. "Yes, he'll do it."
When I arrived at 24 Sussex, Mr. Chrétien wasn't in the best of humours. In fact he was almost growling at me. Later he began to relax a bit. After the interview I had to start rearranging the manuscript to insert portions of what he had to say and reappraise certain portions of the book. This more than played havoc with my golf schedule!
Then former deputy prime minister Herb Gray called. He wanted to get a few points across. Then others called to offer or amend their version of events. Meanwhile some significant developments in the Chrétien story were taking place. New stuff on the war in Iraq. The power blackout. The debate over same-sex marriage. All of which I had to get into the book.
So much juggling. Virtually ever chapter was being updated or changed in some way through July and August. But there was no choice. Had this book been submitted in February, which was the original deadline, there would have been no Chrétien interview, no Paul Martin interview, nothing on the war, nothing on the other major reforms Chrétien undertook in his last year in power. It would have been an out-of-date product.
Thanks to communications technologies and patient and understanding people at my publishing house, it all came together in time.
Lawrence Martin, a former Washington and Moscow correspondent for The Globe and Mail, is an Ottawa-based contributing columnist for the newspaper. To learn more about Iron Man, click here.
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