BARRY, John M. 1947-

PERSONAL: Born April 12, 1947, in Providence, RI; son of Fred A. and Dorothy (maiden name, Lippman) Barry; married Anne Hudgins Sullivan. Education: Brown University, B.A.; University of Rochester, M.A. Religion: Jewish.

ADDRESSES: Home—New Orleans, LA, and Washington, DC. Agent—Rafael Sagalyn, 4825 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda, MD 20814.

CAREER: Football coach, journalist, and author of nonfiction.

AWARDS, HONORS: Francis Parkman Prize for American History from the Society of American Historians, Southern Book Award from the Southern Book Critics Circle, Lillian Smith Award from the Southern Regional Council, McLemore Prize from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Mississippi Historical Society, and New York Public Library Book to Remember citation, all c. 1998, all for Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.

WRITINGS:

The Ambition and the Power: A True Story of Washington, Viking (New York, NY), 1989.

(With Steven A. Rosenberg) The Transformed Cell: Unlocking the Mysteries of Cancer, Putnam (New York, NY), 1992.

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.

Power Plays: Politics, Football, and Other Blood Sports, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 2001.

Contributor of articles and book reviews to periodicals, including Esquire, Sports Illustrated, New York Times Sunday Magazine, New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, Newsweek, and Dun's Business Month.

The Transformed Cell has been translated into twelve languages.

ADAPTATIONS: The Transformed Cell and Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America have been adapted as audiobooks.

SIDELIGHTS: Reporter John M. Barry caught the attention of the reading public with The Ambition and the Power: A True Story of Washington, which covers Jim Wright's term as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. Barry's other book-length works include The Transformed Cell: Unlocking the Mysteries of Cancer, co-written with Steven A. Rosenberg, and Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, which won numerous awards and was recognized by the New York Public Library as a "Book to Remember."

Shortly before Jim Wright became Speaker of the House in 1987, he decided to allow Barry—then working as a reporter but planning a book about how power is used in Congress—to chronicle his life as a public servant. This relationship between the two men allowed Barry to attend all of Wright's private meetings at which staff were present. Barry supplemented his research with two hundred additional interviews and completed his work in 1989; it was published as The Ambition and the Power. As fate would have it, Barry depicted Wright's fall from grace and eventual resignation from the speakership for alleged ethics violations.

Several commentators praised the work highly. Business Week contributor Douglas Harbrecht wrote, "This is a riveting portrait, not just of Wright, but of Congress and how things really work on Capitol Hill." Although he found the book "flawed in several respects," New York Times reviewer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt nevertheless noted that it "remains an overwhelmingly powerful story and one of the best political books to be written in several years."

"Mr. Barry does a creditable job of inside reporting and analysis on a variety of subjects," asserted Ronnie Dugger in a New York Times Book Review summation of The Ambition and the Power. "In addition to his detailing of Mr. Wright's business dealings, the author is especially sharp on Mr. Wright's involvement in the current savings and loan calamity and on legislative showdowns on the House floor. And his privileged access to House insiders has yielded many fascinating nuggets." According to John H. Taylor in Los Angeles Times Book Review, "Climactic scenes on the House floor dance on the page as though they had been blocked out by Frank Capra. Barry uses all of Tom Wolfe's tricks—the capital letters, exclamation points, and interior-monologue italics—to excellent effect. Striking details . . . propel the reader through complicated accounts of legislative maneuvering that would drag in the work of a lesser writer." Though he noted that the book "bogs down in congressional minutia at times," Harbrecht wrote that "it is a brilliant depiction of how members of Congress battle, and how small grudges and resentments of years' standing influence what happens today," adding that The Ambition and the Power "provides a dramatic, historical perspective on why Wright didn't make it. If the unfolding story left you . . . wondering what on earth is going on in Washington, this is your book."

Yet critical praise was not given without some reservations, such as Lehmann-Haupt's questioning of the book's length and its author's writing style. "So detailed is Mr. Barry's narrative that he is afraid to let it speak for itself," stated the critic. "Nor do the florid metaphors help . . . nor the author's attraction to cliches." However, Taylor applauded Barry's energy as well as his technical skills: "No study of congressional life in all its tawdry splendor has ever combined access with execution as well as The Ambition and the Power. In telling Wright's story, Barry conveys all the intricacy, bombast, grandeur and villainy of what occurs on the dark side of representative democracy."

Barry assisted Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, in writing The Transformed Cell, wherein the researcher described his development as a scientist and the immunotherapy and gene therapy approaches to treating cancer that he has developed over two decades. Writing in New York Times Book Review, Dr. Steven A. Schroeder praised the work: "The Transformed Cell does suffer a bit when stacked against James D. Watson's classic about the discovery of the structure of DNA, The Double Helix, though the author invites the comparison. Still, Dr. Rosenberg's story is well worth telling.... In an era of cynicism about scientific research and government, Dr. Rosenberg's relentless pursuit of a cure for cancer . . . is an inspiration."

Barry's Rising Tide, a detailed work of popular history, was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Francis Parkman Prize for American History, which is awarded by the Society of American Historians. In the book, Barry recounts how several nineteenth-century engineers battled over their proposal for controlling the flow of the mighty Mississippi River, and how resulting policies contributed to the disastrous flood of 1927, which covered 27,000 square miles from Illinois to Missouri and displaced almost one million people. Rising Tide "is a timely, disturbing, and fascinating look at the Mississippi during its most powerful self-assertion, the great flood of 1927," stated Susan Larson in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. In the Boston Globe, Will Haygood observed that "legions of writers have taken on the Mississippi River....As much of its saga lies on dry land as in the river, and no one has told that part of the story with the verve, passionate energy, and literary bravado that Barry . . . does."

In Rising Tide, Barry argues that the great flood led to significant improvements in federal flood-control measures. He also draws connections between the flood and the Great Migration of black workers to northern industrial cities. "Like the river, [Rising Tide] is broad-shouldered and violent and fascinating," commented Peter Rowe in the San Diego Union Tribune. Jonathan Yardley stated in the Washington Post that the volume "is a big ambitious book that is not merely engrossing and informative but also has the potential to change the way we think." Similar praise was expressed by Journal of the American Planning Association contributor Raymond J. Burby, who declared that Rising Tide "easily stands as the best book I have read in a number of years." And in the Los Angeles Times, Jim Squires called Rising Tide "an important contribution to history and literature."

Barry told CA: "I try to never start writing about something until I feel that I understand it completely. I try not to 'make do' with limited information. I keep searching, trying to fill in the gaps. This may be the difference between, say, reporting for a newspaper on deadline—when you have to make do with what you have at a certain time—and writing books. This doesn't mean that I never make mistakes, that I'm always right. It does mean that I take seriously the writer's responsibility to get to the truth. In fact, I believe there are only two reasons to write anything, fiction or nonfiction. One is to seek the truth, which means no compromises. The other is to be an advocate, to try to use your writing to change the world. The reason I write is the former. The comments from reviews I am proudest of are, from the Los Angeles Times on my first book, The Ambition and the Power: 'The quality of Barry's reporting makes most newspaper work seem like the funny papers'; and from the New York Times Book Review on Rising Tide: 'magisterial in its scope and fiercely dedicated to unearthing truth.'

"Beyond that, if there is a theme to my work, it is power. Power interests me. This includes both the power of nature and the power of man.

"My first book attempted to use Jim Wright's twoand-a-half years as Speaker of the House as a narrative vehicle to explore how power is used in Washington. There power is a zero sum game. If one person has more, someone else has less. He tried to make the office of the speaker into a much more powerful institution than it had been, and that meant he took power from the White House, from the then-Republican minority in the Congress, and even from committee chairmen of his own party. He was successful briefly and even brought about a peace agreement in guerrilla wars being fought in Central America. This was an astounding act, since the White House normally handles all foreign policy initiatives. A few months after Wright became speaker, his nemesis, Newt Gingrich, told me, 'If Wright consolidates his power, he will be a very, very formidable man. We have to take him on early to prevent that.' But at the very moment of Wright's greatest triumph, Gingrich also told me, 'Wright's a useful keystone to a much bigger structure. I'll just keep pounding and pounding on his ethics. There comes a point where it comes together and the media takes off on it, or it dies.' Then, with an odd tone of respect in his voice, Gingrich added, 'If Wright survives this ethical thing, he may become the greatest Speaker since Henry Clay.' Wright did not survive. He was the first Speaker in history forced to resign over ethics, but his ouster had nothing to do with ethics and everything to do with power.

"My second book is really Steve Rosenberg's. Steve is one of the world's leading cancer researchers; he was the first person to find a way to make the immune system attack cancer and also, with two equal collaborators, performed the first human gene therapy. But even in this book, power played a significant role. It shows how a single person dedicated to—or obsessed with—a particular vision can change society. Ultimately his work will do that.

"Rising Tide is a study of the power of nature and the power of man against nature—the story of the power of the river and the power of the men along the river. This latter story quickly degenerated into a story of man against man. It combined my interest in science (in this case river engineering) and politics. In addition, I believe that societies reveal themselves in crisis, and the 1927 flood was a crisis—it put up to thirty feet of water over an area where one million people lived. There is no better time to see the real workings of power than when it is faced with a great threat."

Indeed, power is the central theme of Barry's collection of essays, Power Plays: Politics, Football, and Other Blood Sports. The book contains pieces on the political careers of Jim Wright and his successor, Newt Gingrich; Vice President Dick Cheney; Senate Republican leader Trent Lott; and House Democratic whip David Bonior. As well, Barry looks at the use and abuse of power in athletics by examining the achievements of such figures as world record-holding hurdler Renaldo Nehemiah and those of NFL players and coaches. "This book explores the exercise of power," writes Barry, "not only in terms of Washington but for individuals who try to use their own lives as a kind of exercise of power. It looks at the price one pays to win, the price of losing, how one imposes one's will on others, and how people react when the world grinds slowly away at them." Though Booklist contributor Scott Wilkens found the book's conflation of political and sports material "a bit forced" at times, the critic considered Power Plays a "thoughtful" collection. In Library Journal, Thomas J. Baldino wrote that "this well-written book makes good points and is worthy of a wide audience."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Spectator, December, 1995, p. 37.

Booklist, January 1, 1999, Ted Hipple, review of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, p. 901; September 1, 2001, Scott Wilkens, review of Power Plays: Politics, Football, and Other Blood Sports, p. 20.

Boston Globe, March 30, 1997, Will Haygood, review of Rising Tide.

Business Week, November 27, 1989, Douglas Harbrecht, review of The Ambition and the Power: A True Story of Washington, pp. 16-18.

Journal of the American Planning Association, summer, 2000, Raymond J. Burby, review of Rising Tide, p. 337.

Library Journal, November 1, 1992, p. 134; February 1, 2002, Thomas J. Baldino, review of Power Plays, p. 116.

Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1997, Jim Squires, review of Rising Tide.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, November 26, 1989, John H. Taylor, review of The Ambition and the Power, p. 35.

New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 23, 1997, Susan Larson, review of Rising Tide.

New York Review of Books, May 17, 1990, pp. 18-21.

New York Times, November 20, 1989, p. C17; March 24, 1997, p. B7.

New York Times Book Review, November 19, 1989, p. 12; October 18, 1992, pp. 14-15; April 13, 1997.

San Diego Union Tribune, April 27, 1997, Peter Rowe, review of Rising Tide.

Tribune Books (Chicago), January 7, 1990, p. 6.

Washington Post, April 28, 1997, Jonathan Yardley, review of Rising Tide.

Washington Post Book World, November 12, 1989, p. 10.*