Martha sandweiss biography

Interview

An interview with Martha Sandweiss in which she discusses her book Passing Strange, a biography of Clarence King who lived a double life - as the celebrated white explorer, geologist and writer Clarence King; and as a black Pullman porter named James Todd, married to Ada with whom he had five children.

What drew you to the story of Clarence King?

Many years ago, in graduate school, I read a marvelous biography of King, one of the great heroes of western exploration. The author devoted only about five pages of this five hundred page book, however, to a discussion of King's relationship with an African American woman named Ada.

It struck me that a thirteen-year relationship that produced five children deserved more attention than that, even if it was a secret life that would be difficult to uncover. In our celebrity-obsessed world, public figures find it very difficult to have truly private lives.

I decided t