Telling the whole story: Biography and representation

As John Lomaxs biographer, Porterfield offers in this response his own pers pective on the relationship between John Lomax and Henry Truvillion. More b roadly, however, he addresses the assumptions and expectations surrounding life stories, considering the evolving functions of biography as well as it s methods and ways of looking at them. Porterfield observes that today, bio graphy is often considered a "straightforward process of gathering facts an d assembling them, more or less in chronological order." However, he argues , biography is also a creative act and an artistic producta fact that may p rompt us to consider a distinction between finding the True Story and telli ng the Whole Story.