I’ve read some feel @robertacaro’s book is more a collection of fragments and notes than a cohesive monograph. Maybe.

For me it seemed more authentic for exactly that reason, like one of Caro’s beloved bundles of mystery documents, awaiting the reader’s own ‘eureka’ moment. 1/x

Caro discovered early that silence is the interviewer’s best weapon.

He says he often sits quietly after asking a question, scribbling attentively in his notebook the letters S.U. - a reminder to “shut up”, “until the witness breaks down and talks”.

2/x

During his interviews Caro’s favourite question is, “What did you see?” He asks again and again, a subject sometimes on the verge of becoming enraged. Caro presses: “Yes -but tell me what you *saw*!”

Caro believes facts mean more to readers who can visualize their context.

3/x

Yet Caro is not all about ‘mis en scene’. He’s not “all eyes and no ears”, as a critic once described another author.

Caro is sceptical about ultimate Truth. But he says every fact gathered moves the author one step closer to whatever truth may exist.

4/x

In that same vein, Caro describes in loving terms his lifelong affair with files and documents. And the closest he comes to a motto is from his early editor at Newsday: “Turn every page. Don’t assume a thing. Turn every goddamn page.”

5/x

Caro’s stories reveal heroics of perserverence: he has a bloodhound’s compulsion to sniff out evidence. His opponents try to fight back: a group of thugs comes every night to steal all the lightbulbs in a vast warehouse where Caro spends his days hunting thru stacks of boxes. 6/x

Caro is not glum about journalism. He points to how newspapers regularly used to dismiss events or demonstrations held by folks on the wrong side the tracks (the poor, the people of colour, and so on). Caro does acknowledge the difficulty in explaining things ‘objectively’. 7/x

Ultimately, Caro’s passion may be more visible in his purpose than his writing (“Stop thinking with your fingers!” a mentor scolded Caro when his stories got overheated”)

Caro says his aim is simple. He wants to show, “How things work. Particularly power; how power works.” Fin